Sounds like you possess an incredible ability to decipher just where a bullet will end up and the calm demeanor to then act accordingly. There are countless police departments who could use someone with your skill set. When are you signing up? Just think of the lives you could save!
The report during the chase was that a gun was fired. Based on what was heard and a flash of light. As Walker fled from the car, he was unarmed. Police found the gun and a loaded magazine in the car - no bullets were in the gun.
Don't get me wrong - I understand that the police believed he had a gun and reacted to what they thought was a threatening motion. I understand that police training is to shoot (basically empty their guns) when they believe they are threatened, and most officers must have believed this based on the shot volume. Should police training change? I don't know - but it should be reviewed.
I don't believe Walker deserved to be killed. Note that Ohio law permits basically anyone to carry a gun, concealed or otherwise. I too wish he would have stopped when the lights started flashing.
They found a shell casing that matched the caliber of the hand gun at the point the officer reported the shots were fired, seems to be a pretty good clue. Dropping a magazine requires a push of a button and loading it requires about the same.
Let's go through all the things he did wrong without firing the weapon. Lead the police on a high speed chase through town, didn't stop the car when he was surrounded, jumped out of the car wearing a ski mask and made a run for it.
" I understand that police training is to shoot (basically empty their guns) when they believe they are threatened,"
This is not what police are taught. In 20 years of law enforcement, 10 as a firearms instructor, we never once taught an officer to empty their weapon in a firefight. We trained them to fire enough shots to neutralize the threat. The issue is that during an armed encounter, there are a myriad of physiological changes a human being goes through. There are issues of auditory and visual exclusion, issues with fine motor skills, etc. It isn't possible to keep track of how many rounds you fired during a shooting.
I worked a number of police involved shootings where officers have fired only three rounds, and others where officers fired a magazine full of ammo. I fired seven rounds during my only shooting, but I told my PBA rep that I though I had only fired one or two.
As for Walker being killed, I can't speak for any of these particular officers. We always taught officers to shoot to stop the threat. This can mean incapacitating someone, or killing someone. Often times the outcome isn't known until the situation has completely stopped. And empty firearm? There is no way to tell if a firearm is loaded, or not. So you assume it's loaded and act accordingly.
Your understanding of what police are trained like could use an update from a non-activist or Hollywood POV. Zero departments train officer’s to unload on a threat.
The cops just heard a shot. they have no idea where it was directed, nor where it landed. Having a gun in this country is legal, if you're white. But this guy was already profiled and getting pulled over for what? The cops can't even tell us for what! When he stopped his car and got out, the cops screaming some unintelligible monster screams at him... the victim knows it only takes one cop to start shooting before he's dead, he's running for his life. What did he even do to deserve this punishment. I'm truly shocked at everyone that thinks that any black person that does anything... ANYTHING, is just cause to get killed by the cops who make their rules, and follow their OWN laws, and aren't held accountable in 99% of their actions. You people are monsters.
“ they have no idea where it was directed” Are you a child? What do you think is going to happen if you flee the police, shoot a gun, and then run? It sounds a lot like suicide by cop to me.
staceface72: "I'm truly shocked at everyone that thinks that any black person that does anything... ANYTHING, is just cause to get killed by the cops who make their rules"
Um... could you identify the content -- here -- that implies these delusions about "everyone" and "anything"?
You're on Matt Taibbi's site, remember -- not some MSM cherry-picked, loner / tiny nutgroup's page, oh-so-easily found all over this country of 330 MILLION people.
You assume that police pulled over a man because he was black despite knowing that he was masked and therefor the police couldn't know his race. You also dismiss the fact that he was firing his gun at the police - because police officers deserve to die? It seems you're the monster here.
In all earnestness, what does it matter what he was being pulled over for? Do you propose that we have a system where if you are being pulled over for no seatbelt, you then flee, creating a high speed chase, fire a gun in the general direction of police during the chase, and then lead them on a foot chase, that the feature of those events that dictates how police can react is the seatbelt violation?
"The cops just heard a shot. they have no idea where it was directed, nor where it landed."
They heard it come from the car they were chasing. They saw the flash come from the car they were chasing. It was directed at the police. Where the shot landed is irrelevant. If where it landed was relevant that would mean cops cannot return fire without forensics and ballistics testing. Which, of course, is patently absurd.
"The cops just heard a shot. they have no idea where it was directed, nor where it landed."
The more you write, the dumber you sound. Stop getting your knowledge of police work from TV shows. Pinpointing the origin of a gunshot, and where that shot may have ended up, is nearly impossible unless the firearm is being shot in close proximity, and or you can hear the projectile striking an area nearby.
"But this guy was already profiled and getting pulled over for what? The cops can't even tell us for what! "
That all depends on the status of an investigation. Police and prosecutors withhold evidence from public view for any number of reasons.
"I'm truly shocked at everyone that thinks that any black person that does anything... ANYTHING, is just cause to get killed by the cops who make their rules, "
And I'm no longer shocked by the criminal stupidity some engage in because they think with emotions instead of logic.
Rob Hustle (who is POC) had a video from several years years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGPXOn9qJs -or- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvRDpxMlu4 for lyrics only) that did at least a couple of interesting things: (1) recognized (and explicitly showed) there are victims of all races and classes, and (2) identified the main (not sole) culprit as police academy military indoctrination. Hmmm ...
There is footage showing what appears to be a muzzle flash from his car. But perhaps it was his camera flash as he uploaded a selfie to Facebook, while driving at high speed and endangering everyone else.
How is it possible for you to know whether or not he was attempting to shoot AT them?
Wearing a ski mask, fleeing from police, and firing a weapon when being pursued may not mean you should die, but they DO mean you own the outcome, because you brought it on yourself.
How do you know he wasn't shooting AT them? And nobody is saying he deserved to be shot BECAUSE he was wearing a ski mask.
Funny, also, that you omit the fact that he failed to stop -fleeing and leading police on a vehicle chase- then exited the vehicle and lead them on another chase on foot.
I am really tired of hearing this kind of stupid remark, very American these days: when a suspect does a series of obviously bad actions that spook and confuse the police and ends up shot to death, they would say “He didn’t deserve to die for that!”. Of course he didn’t, but stop being hypocritical and pretending that the police should behave like a cyborgs with no fear, complete detachment and perfectly calibrated response. What is this, a ridiculous game where you want to push it and see how many dangerous things you can do in a country awash in guns and crazy criminals before you get shot?
No, I want the cops to be held accountable for their actions! The police are out of control in most aspects and they have WAY too much power than any gang of type-A pussies with guns should have. They need to be reigned in, given distinct scope over their jurisdictions and not able to patrol neighborhoods, doing whatever they feel like doing. Fuck! It doesn't have to be this way! Why does everyone assume that it does??!
Typical spoiled child attitude, completely detached from reality and entitled. You should move to a country where the police is not just sometimes poorly trained, given too much power and afraid of criminals who outgun them, like the US, but a country where the police is your ENEMY for real, because they’re totally corrupt and out of control. Lack of perspective results in woke absurdity (although I can’t help assuming there might also be some natural stupidity involved).
Our criminal justice system can be likened to a piano hanging over the sidewalk, and it occasionally and randomly falls and crushes someone, usually an innocent and sometimes even the police.
Spend a night or two accompanying a tactical squad in Chicago; it's frightening, and highly educational. The "good stuff" never sees an inch of column space in any journalistic enterprise. The bad stuff leads, because it sells.
You need to get out of whatever bubble you exist in and educate yourself. Lots of bad cops, and lots of avoidable tragedies. Then, there's the other side, which you don't seem to recognize exists.
It strikes me that both the police and the criminals are out of control. And why not? In many jurisdictions the DA won't prosecute. And we know the police face few repercussions for their excesses unless things blow up too badly for their union to cover. So life and death encounters it is.
In few cases do either cops or suspects deserve to die. And never without due process of law. The cops do need to do better. That said, discharging a weapon while fleeing police does not seem a wise thing to do. And emphasizing that a suspect was unarmed when shot while sidestepping that he was very much armed and had discharged a weapon in the presence of the cops earlier in the confrontation seems designed to inflame tensions while convincing people skeptical of police excesses that you really can't trust the press. Idiots all around.
You need to get out of America and I suggest you go burn up in the sun so you can become a part of "marginalized" community. I suggest you move to South Africa and then get fresh with the historical marginalized majority. Then again, I think you DO want to be brutally victimized by the "marginalized" so you can claim white supremacy or die a martyr to wokism. What is wrong with you 😂. You sound like a jihadists or a christian zealot from the Westboro Baptist Church. I'm really starting to see a similarity between the woke and Jim Jones.
So, by this deduction, the act of shooting randomly is OK. This is much like the Chicago shooting where the kid was running away with an automatic weapon, and when he spun and raised his hands, he dropped the weapon...so he was "unarmed".
really? What actions? What was the FIRST action that made him a criminal deserving to die? The cops can't tell you what he was getting pulled over for. And then they chased him... why??? Haven't we seen the outcome of getting chased by the pigs for nothing? kinda seems like they are just trying to kill people, but obviously, on this thread, I'm the only one. Matt Taibbi doesn't deserve this kind of inhumanity on his page.
Probably his first action that “made him a criminal” was likely failure to comply....but definitely not “deserving to die”. He escalated by fleeing....still not “deserving to die”. Firing a weapon? Now the dynamics have changed. Now it’s definitely escalated to life and death for both parties. Unfortunately for the suspect, “self defense” only works for the cops in a situation like this. Many, but definitely not all, of the situations that have been caught on camera show some sort of escalation. AVOID ESCALATION, ESPECIALLY WITH COPS. The ones who haven’t figured this out are the ones who wind up on the evening news. And if you happen to be taking drugs (legal or otherwise, or drinking) that make you edgy, stay off the streets for your own good. And everyone else’s.
I totally agree with you. There is no justification for what happened to Jayland Walker. Nada. Niente. Zilch.
It was a routine traffic stop late at night. (The cops _can_ tell you what he was getting pulled over for, by the way—two lights out on the back of the car.)
I think the whole protocol for what ensues when a person eludes a routine traffic stop needs to be restructured. If the two pursuing officers have the license plate—easy enough to write that down before they turn on the flashing lights—then the case can be followed up and whatever justice is involved in making sure that people don't drive with lights out on the back of their cars can be served—without a hail of bullets.
If you shoot a gun out the window leading police on a high-speed chase and then jump out of the car with a ski mask on, sprinting away from the cops while they’re screaming at you to stop and tasing you, you are begging to be shot. You maybe don’t know it if you’re a complete moron, but you’re begging for it nonetheless.
Everybody knows that in the state of Ohio, in July, all motorists have a ski mask in their car and use whenever they see a police car. The flash of light must have been not from a gun but the flash from a camera. It’s not illegal to take a flash picture when the police chases you, just like it’s not illegal to wear a ski mask! It’s only common sense that is illegal now in America.
If you fire a gun out of the window of your car, you are shooting at someone and presenting a grave risk to your target and the community at large. This shooting should not be considered “controversial”.
He was wearing a ski mask so they wouldn't be able to see his face, obviously. Why? that's for him to know. who cares????????? what's it fucking matter? I personally wonder if he was trying to kill himself. After all he'd just lost his fiance. Now the cops are chasing him and he knows he fuckin dead. Maybe him shooting the gun was an accident? Why did he run? https://youtu.be/NWyQXzqEuX4 (if the link doesn't work, go to youtube and search amber ruffin-white people just don't understand police brutality.) here's a quick video telling you why black people run (or don't) and still get killed. Standing down means giving up. The guy stopped running and turned around, his hands were doing what anyone else's would do when raising them, going from in front of your, to the sides and up? nope... he didn't have time to put them up.
I am a black person. I do not and wouldn’t run from the police. That is stupid and dangerous. The frequency of police shooting peaceful unarmed black men today is so infinitesimally small that to act in an aggressive or erratic manner is exceptionally irrational. The fact that you seem to be approving of black people behaving like this person behaved is grotesque. Police kill unarmed white people as well. They kill unarmed people. It happens. Sometimes police make mistakes, sometimes police are not trained well, sometimes police are scared, and sometimes police are horrible people. Regardless, no black person should have it in their mind that an encounter with the police is going to likely end in their death if they do not flee or fire weapons. That is delusional and dangerous. Encouraging it is immoral.
Bingo! Surprised I had to read so far to find your chonk of sanity. Anybody who thinks they need to fight their way out of a police stop is creating that outcome. Those cops should sleep well, they are not to blame.
When angry people with guns scream at you to do something, I suggest you comply. Thank me later.
"He was wearing a ski mask so they wouldn't be able to see his face, obviously. Why? that's for him to know. who cares????????? what's it fucking matter?"
But you also wrote, "But this guy was already profiled and getting pulled over for what?
How could he be "profiled" if they couldn't see his face?
and you aren't answering the question of what was he pulled over for? Why did he NEED the scrutiny bestowed upon him? a tail light out? a license plate light out? what's the good reason for why he was chased and killed in a hail of bullets when he'd never even been in trouble before. If this was your kid you'd be thinking quite differently about all this.
you're assuming he had his mask on while driving around, but then again: It's a free country!! So what's the problem? And just for arguments sake, your hands are the same color as your skin... so there's that, but also I'd be keen to know the percentage of POC in the neighborhood the cops was patrolling in the first place to make an assumption on whether being able to see him was reason enough to get a second look.
73 likes for a comment that belies the core point of the article--that we don't have enough information due to police not following guidelines that were put into place following Ferguson? Seriously?
Think of the root comment here as a hypothetical: IF a guy in a ski mask was shooting at police, THEN the police would be justified in shooting back. And lo and behold, people have opinions on that!
People are going straight the comments, as Ford Fischer’s News2Share crew posted on YouTube, which of course in their wisdom turned around and "age"-restricted it. Cuz YouTube good citizens and all, crusading against disinformation, and uncomfortable things in general.
That's right, the world isn't perfect. People will respond to articles, even without the academic rigor that is right and proper, nor with the gravitas commensurate with Matt Taibbi's exalted status in the world of journalism. Believe me, I feel your angst! 'Tis both a crime and a pity, what with all the troubles in the world ... but it is what it is.
I guess we should all stay home on Halloween and not wear a mask on our way to a costume party - we might get killed if stopped by a cop - seems from the comments that this is okay
The number of times he was shot is irrelevant. If he shouldn't have been shot, then a single bullet is too many and the shooter needs to go to prison. If it was justified for the police to shoot him, then one bullet or sixty doesn't change the situation a bit.
Guy with ski mask on (standard door dash attire) flees from the cops (who can't tell his race because of the mask) and shoots at the cops. He then makes a run for it and turns to the cops who all fire at the same time. It always amazes me that people who've never fired a gun before, or have been shot at are so impressed by the number of bullets fired within the span of a few seconds by a group of cops, all of whom are worried about being killed.
Pretty simple. You see the lights behind you, you pull over, respond to requests by LE and you have a 99.9999999999999999% chance of waking up the next day. Flee, fire a gun from your vehicle, run from the car while being commanded to stop and it’s 50/50 if you’ll make it home.
Exactly! When did it become justifiable to break away and flee from the police? Especially when you're wearing a ski mask and have already fired a weapon toward them?
We too often expect law enforcement to achieve perfection in the use of force, when the obvious answer is, "Don't Run!"
Ummm...when I was a teen running from the cops was a pretty normal Saturday night. None of them ever shot at us.
Of course, running and getting caught was usually a one way ticket to a good ass kicking.
No gun fire though.
One night my buddy and I had talked some adult into getting us 4 bottles of Mad Dog 20/20. A beat cop saw us walking along on our way to meet our girlfriends and set off in pursuit. My buddy yelled "head for the rock lot." ("Rock lots" were what we called empty lots where houses once stood. They filled them with these weird gray rocks in order to keep the dust down. I think.)
Back in the day every cop wore hard soled shoes and I will never forget the look on that cops face when his hard soled shoes hit those rocks and his legs jetted out from under him. My buddy & I back pedaled out that lot laughing maniacally as we both flipped him the bird.
You guys were typical stupid teens-not wearing ski masks and shooting out of a moving vehicle.
FWIW, the SC banned firing on fleeing, unarmed/non threatening suspects in the early 70s, the Memphis PD had to change it’s use of force policy rather significantly as an outcome of the case.
I'm not unsympathetic to the police. My brother in law is a police officer. He's one of the most stand up guys that I know. Coached baseball, hockey & football in his community on top of being a full time cop.
His take on shootings like this actually stunned me. He said that many police officers are complete assholes & not very bright assholes either. But the hiring pool is often not very large so police forces sometimes have to take whoever they can get.
Maybe that's an excuse & maybe it isn't but my in law hates public displays like the Ohio incident for the simple reason that they make his job harder every time they happen.
I don't think the cops shot at my friends & I because it was still pre-crack epidemic America where poor white, brown & black trash weren't packing heat on a regular basis.
We used to have semi-regular street brawls with black kids. They were always known to carry knives but guns were never an issue. Hell, I'm white and I always carried a switchblade. Still carry a well sharpened knife that is right at the edge of the legal limit whenever I leave the house. Old habits die hard I suppose.
But I think that the huge influx of Contra coke in the 80s along with the attendant influx of military grade weaponry, much of it I would bet came indirectly from the US government through the Contras, drastically changed the landscape.
To be fair I would love an article that also showed the percentage of black folk caught carrying illegal firearms during routine traffic stops versus the percentage of white folks caught carrying illegal firearms.
Or an article showing the effect on the black community of idiotic comments like Spike Lee's where he said that "black people are being hunted in America."
I would also love to see "judging from a safe distance" liberals actually become cops and put their liberal ideas into action while their asses are on the line.
Also I believe there were two gents, 1 at Reuters & 1 at an Ivy League school, who wanted to crunch the numbers and prove BLM claims that the police shoot more black suspects than white but actually found the exact opposite. Both were allegedly canned for trying to publicize those findings. The irony being that the Ivy League guy was black.
But whenever I hear some outlandish number of rounds being fired I always picture the Sonny Corleone execution scene from The Godfather & I wonder how the fuck that is possible in real life. People aren't deer. They don't take a pumpkin ball and then keep running for miles so you have to track them. Humans, if they're not chemically enhanced, usually just fall over after 1 or 2 bullets.
Having said all of that I am not in the defund the police camp. The realities of America require us to "pay guys with guns to protect us from guys with guns." I don't see that changing any time soon.
I also believe that every American, irregardless of sex & color, have the right to own & bear legally obtained firearms. I've lived smack dab in a neighborhood of mostly well armed Trump lovers for a couple of decades and one thing that we don't have here is an appreciable crime problem. I own weapons and have no problem with them. I find most politicians & media quislings really have no clue about guns & their non stop stream of half truths & mistakes just continually muddy the issue.
BTW I don't like guns, altho am related to and know many people with guns, who would NEVER pull them out to shoot at anybody in an area with any people. Jesus.
It's time for the cops to pull out of Chicagostan and everywhere else where police are accused of committing "atrocities." Time to let everybody figure out what they want their community to be. They don't want cops, so be it. The cops should move to the Burbs, or wherever people want "law and order." There will be desolation and guns left in the inner cities. Of course this is outrageous for this to happen to these people, but, . . . Thanks, Dems, who have set the tone for more than half a century.
'fired a weapon toward them' is an assumption here. when you are a person of color, the 'obvious answer' isn't so fucking obvious when anyway you turn, you get killed. just put yourself in other people's shoes dude. and if you can't do that, then go and get educated by people who actually know what it's like to be a POC in America. But you have got to stop assuming that everyone else gets the same treatment you do, just because that's your experience. Humanity is supposed to learn from eachother, not just sit in your own little hovel thinking everything you've done is exactly what happened to everyone else in that situation.
Hello white female staceface. As a person of color(tm) I suggest you stop thinking that every person of color’s experience is the same and we all think alike. Or--that some of our experiences are more valid because we share some of your political perspectives.
Please learn from me when I say that I am more afraid of walking through a random majority black neighborhood than walking through a random police precinct. Given that this person who was killed by the police ran from them in the dark, and fired a gun, I can guarantee you that what happened to them doesn’t make me worry about interacting with the police. Why? Because i won’t be firing a gun while fleeing from them.
Your perspective, based on your comment, and the perspective you share with many other “liberals” and “progressives” is ultimately more harmful to black people than, for example, Trump’s. That’s right, your attitude toward black people is worse than Trump’s.
"go and get educated by people who actually know what it's like to be a POC in America" LOL
Only white lady saviors believe there is one single knowable way to "be a POC in America", which is a preposterous idea based on a hysterical fantasy that 2022 America is apartheid South Africa, with underclass blacks living in daily fear for their lives.
Excluding African-Americans, everyone else who could be included under the umbrella of "POC" from East Indians to West Indians, from Nigerians to Chinese, do remarkably well in America at building nice and safe middle-class lives for themselves and their families.
And as for African-Americans, we all know there is a major problem with underclass poverty and violence, but even then there is also a thriving middle class and these violent police encounters affect only a small sliver of usually repeat offenders.
I know I'm just a random jerk on the internet and hey, i wouldnt listen to me either, but you should know that the tactics you use of denouncing police as "pigs" and labeling all your enemies as "white" this and that, make as many or more enemies as they do allies.
Doesn’t firing a gun out the window cross a red line even if it’s not aimed at the cops? Someone indiscriminately firing a gun out of a car window is a threat to the community no?
(1) recognized, and explicitly showed, there are victims of different races and different classes, and
(2) identified the *main* (though not sole) culprit as the emergent police academy military-style indoctrination. Although not stated in the video, the latter is a well-documented phenomenon that accelerated following 9/11.
If you submit to YouTube's "age"-check, you can see the first version, which contains a series of corresponding police-in-action videos (probably not for the faint-of-heart), rather than just hear the lyrics.
The problem with police cameras is not that they show too little, it's that they show too much. Americans can now see the violence and plain stupidity that cops are called on to referee. And rather than be ashamed, the left doubles down, Career criminal should be a safe occupation. We must protect these young men from all consequences. But when they kill each other? Crickets.
100%. If you get assaulted while working in a NYC bodega, and defend yourself by stabbing the gang loser in a $300 shirt but no job beating you, you end up in Rikers. But if you are the thug with gold jewelry, $300 t-shirts, and no source of income you get released on bail before having your charges dropped in the name of “social justice” every single time.
The left only cares on election years. The Cafeteria worker Philando Castile was 100% shot for no other reason than how he appeared. He did everything 100% right after being pulled over for being Black. But that cop, who murdered a guy for his appearance, got off Scott free. I guess as long as the cop shooting someone is Hispanic, it’s fine to the left.
It’s pathetic to ignore Philando Castile but glorify a loser like George Floyd who was on so many drugs, and so hyped up he would have died anyway. A guy who was a life long criminal, assaulted a pregnant woman, and has ZERO redeeming qualities is who the left wants to glorify for Black people. Ridiculous and racist.
Our society has lost any sense of justice and morality. We ask cope to keep us safe but then leftists burn down cities because the cops won’t sit back to be bullet fodder for criminal thugs. Sad.
Philando Castile was a martyr for the 2nd Amendment/CC holders. It is absolutely pathetic how the NRA refused to stand up for him publicly and demand justice.
Floyd would probably have died from his drug overdose, but the cops were scared of him and ended up facing murder charges for holding him down, immobile. Fear and frustration and adrenaline rush happens with cops as well. Doubtful that it can be overcome by training, and doing less sometimes, rather than violently controlling the situation, only comes from experience or watching a wiser, experienced colleague.
Cheap journalism along the lines of “if it bleeds it leads”. It seems way too early to imply the police did something wrong - though they may have - without a thorough investigation. Let the facts take you wherever they lead, then write a story. I expect better of a writer like Matt.
no... you expect him to spout the bullshit you believe and nothing else. Fairweather fan then. we don't need the skewed results of the cops investigating themselves when we can see with our own eyes what happened. Granted in Akron, they are going to send this shooting off to a supposedly "independent investigator group." Who that group is, we shall see, but based on the overwhelmingly white opinion that "cops are the good guys," I believe the independent group will have plenty of bias as well, but you never know. Here in Denver, the independent investigation into Elijah McClaine's death did come back with real, scathing reviews about the Aurora police Department and their way of doing things. What changes its brought to the APD is yet to be seen. In conclusion, we will probably be told by Akron's independent investigation, that the cops were in the wrong and grossly negligent in caring for Jayland Walker's safety. That's obvious for anyone who has eyes.
I made it very clear that I don’t “believe “ anything, only that the facts aren’t in and throwing emotional red (OK, blue) meat out there is not real journalism. Sounds like your mind is already made up except for who should conduct the investigation. BLM?
It's going to be very difficult to accomplish anything in the face of the national fetish for militarism and violence which shows up at the top and all the way down.
I’m convinced it was suicide by cop. His fiancé died a month ago, he ran from a traffic stop knowing a police chase would ensue, a shot was fired from his vehicle (caught on security camera), when finally stopped he lept from the passenger side of the car wearing a ski mask leaving behind on the front seat a pistol and wedding band, took off disregarding police orders to stop, and apparently (not conclusive from bodycam) turned and appeared to be reaching for his waist. Guaranteed ticket to the afterlife with mom winning the ghetto reparations lottery.
Of course, to look into the situation any deeper than “cops kill wonderful, loving son for no reason beyond being black” is white supremacy and racism defined. Accountability for one’s actions never enter the discussion.
90 shots, 60 on target is excessive by any measure. Why 9 cops were chasing is another question that should be asked. A runner from a traffic stop shouldn’t require half the department to respond.
Basic fundamental strategy/tactic if one wants to prevail, which is the idea behind police departments. Prevailing. Get there as soon as possible with the most people as possible. There's a reason that even a minor traffic stop gets back up immediately.
It could very well have been suicide by cop. Or not. Doesn't matter. Guy shooting randomly out the window, blasting out and running...he's going down whether he planned it or not.
I like your theory, but reject the number of shots fired as being excessive. Cops are notoriously bad shots under stress (I would be too). They’ve even been known to miss the target with ALL the multiple magazines emptied. This time they were either really close or “lucky”. Dead is dead no matter how many rounds find their mark.
Agree completely that the number of shots fired was beyond excessive and has provided a convenient rallying cry for the defund crowd. But ask yourself this: If instead only a single shot had been fired by LE and the suspect still died, would the public response really be any different?
I don’t disagree. Sadly, the only blacks lives that matter are those miscreants killed by police in the commission of a crime, and only due to the political noise for the left and the financial windfall for the family. Otherwise, no one gives a crap, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin.
Back in the real Bad Neighborhood, there are never these national stories, as the role players don't match either the racial profile, and there were no cops involved. And it was a 16yr old girl who was stabbed to death in broad daylight.
Everybody reading this knows why the Corporate Press wouldn't touch this story with a 10 foot pole.
Enough with the “dubious traffic stop” horseradish. I’ve been stopped for expired tabs, for making an illegal U-turn, for speeding of course, etc. so have my wife, kids, friends of all races. It happens. What we didn’t do was give the cops a bunch of mumble-mouth attitude, lead them on high-speed chases, shoot at them, flee on foot, struggle and wrestle with them, get tased, etc.
As a result, the cops didn’t shoot any of us. Yet young Black male criminals, after doing all of the above, keep getting shot in cities and towns by what we’re supposed to believe is a nationwide scourge of highly-selective racist cops.
I got a speeding ticket a few months ago. It was startling and frankly unnerving to see the flashing red lights and have a police officer commanding me authoritatively for license and registration, but I fully cooperated and he became friendly. He reduced my ticket to a lesser violation and that was that.
No drama.
And I was doing 40 in a 25 mph zone where it was easy to do 50 without thinking. Oh well. I was speeding and I got caught. It happens. That’s how traffic laws are enforced. The officer told me during the stop that the local community had pressed the police there for better control of speeders, given lots of kids live in the neighborhood.
Considering that I pretty much always exceed the limit when not in a residential area, it's somewhat incredible that I'm not regularly nabbed for it, although I've had half a dozen stops over decades. All deserved, and not something I'm proud of necessarily. I drive a lot, but am highly focused on it while doing so, which leads me to believe I have spotted the traps far more frequently than I have been caught in them.
Regardless, when it happens, I certainly don't enjoy it, but I can't say it was ever unreasonable, despite an occasional power tripper.
In the mid-90's I was returning to the DFW area from a hunting trip near Rocky Mountain National Park. My sedan was loaded with 2 rifles in the trunk, cases of beer in the back seat (good beer was hard to find in TX at that time), and a .357 (unloaded in a case with a full speed loader) under my seat. I still had CO plates and DL, having recently moved. It's a fairly long drive, and I was hauling ass just East of Amarillo on a relatively uncrowded State highway with 2 lanes/direction. A trooper in a Camaro was Westbound and saw me passing a semi and couldn't help but notice the difference in speed. He blew through the median and caught up shortly thereafter.
I had the windows down, hands on the wheel, and paperwork on the seat when he approached. I admitted that I knew why I was stopped. He saw the beer and asked if I was aware of the laws on transporting that much, to which I honestly replied that I did not.
He then asked if there was anything else of which he should be aware, and I disclosed all of the firearms. He asked to see them all, which I happily obliged. He called in the serials to see if any had been reported stolen.
Once cleared, he complimented the revolver (a limited edition), and asked if he could look it over more closely. He aimed it out in the distance while we stood by the side of the road, played with the cylinder and checked the action (I often wonder what passersby thought might have been going on). He really liked it. I jokingly asked if I could have a look at his pistol in exchange. He chuckled.
Having asked my destination, he said that it would be in my best interest to slow down, and that were he to discover that I was popped for speeding down the road, he would be there to haul me off personally. A warning.
I can't say that I didn't break the limit afterwards, but I sure as hell kept to what other drivers were doing rather than being the outlier - so he did his job.
I have also been railroaded by one that blatantly lied about circumstances (to such a degree that it could have been easily disproved had the judge been interested in anything other than the officer's word). So I'm aware there are bastards out there. But anecdotally I believe most just want to get through the workday like anyone else does. No one is out looking for sass, obstinance, and disrespect. If that's what one is offering, one shouldn't be surprised if one only encounters bastard cops.
Did you or your loved ones also seek trouble and attention from the police by illegally tinting your windows, modifying your engine or add horns to blast +120db noise, and/or install blindingly bright headlights?
I'm guessing the answer is "no." Funny how people who don't blatantly and knowingly push against the law and seek trouble generally don't find it, right?
If you are going to be a criminal; don't call attention to yourself. Don't be argumentative or be guilty of the most serious thing;"contempt of cop". Do your fighting in court, not in the streets. There's still lot's of opportunities out there, avail yourself of one. Is the system just, no, hell no. The real criminals live in mansions, not in the streets. Your job is to survive and try and thrive.
In a podcast shortly after the death of George Floyd, Glenn Loury noted despairingly, in a country the size of ours, and with as many police-civilian interactions, there will _always_ be another incident for race-baiters to exploit.
True. And there will always be ‘journalists” willing to race bait for money.,Too many. And too few willing to write the all-too-human narratives.
These stops may indeed be dubious. Many people pulled over and ticketed get a bit peeved and believe they were singled out somehow when others weren’t. But what evidence is there that white kids in the same circumstances who did the same things would not have seen the same results. Police procedures are fair game for criticism. But at least do it with integrity.
I’ve been singled out most of my adult life. I was fortunate enough to live and work in an upscale community, but not so fortunate that the car I drove was less than 5 years old (more like 20). I rented space for my contracting equipment under an overpass and sometimes, mostly in the short daylight hours of winter, left in the dark. I’ve been stopped and frisked numerous times, sometimes with my hands being held behind my back. They always find my pocket knife (legal). Sometimes they run my name (nothing to see there), and afterwards I generally thank them for doing their job in a professional manner and keeping an eye on things. Do I enjoy it? No. But I do recognize that from their perspective, I’m suspicious. And I’ve never been on the evening news. Pretty simple.
craazyman — A work friend used to reminisce about her working class Italian neighborhood in New Jersey, where the cops would routinely “tune up” (white) people at traffic stops. I think this was usually when, like Rodney King, they had forced the cops to risk their lives.
It’s indeed curious and worth noting. My reason for saying so is that it was LITERALLY from one column to another: the one about FBI dressed up as agitators at some gay event in Idaho, and he TOTALLY missed the story. It’s been one after another like that since. Wonder what’s going on? It just seems so deliberate. Change of financial incentive probably, like almost everything else…
P.S. Just wanted to add, it's the same with the MT's associated podcast Useful Idiots. Started as a wry, critical look at the general idiocy of elite/MSM behavior, and suddenly switched to a typical partisan, MSNBC-style grind on anything not explicitly Alt-Left. What a disappointment.
Wasn't it just an expected shift from having Aaron sub in on UI? I mean I really like Aaron but I consider Matt way more rationally close to center on some issues and he pushed back against Katie with a different perspective sometimes. Aaron's probably Left of Katie and I don't see him respectfully disagree with her like Matt does, instead just going over the Left of her.
I still see Matt as consistent. He's just giving air to Ford's perspective here and being open to it. I think it was a Miss this time as many here do, but I understand it.
There's still more than plenty to fix about Policing in this country, I think they just picked a bad Hill to die on with this Report.
Matt is very fond of the videos Ford produces, as he says in this article - I think he said it was his favorite source for videos. Also evidenced by using one of their videos several different times, as his entire substack article, with very little or no commentary by Matt. I see that as laziness to put any effort into his own pieces, but I also find the videos from this outfit usually tilt left to one degree or another.
He's one man who's always got a lot of projects going. Idk I watched most of the other Fischer vids and while they do tend to lean Left and regardless whether or not I agreed with them this was the only one I thought wasn't reasonable.
The last one - about the van full of "right wing protesters" wink wink - could have been more critically evaluated but I understand why he didn't think it was worth digging into given Ford's perspective.
133 police officers have been killed and 258 injured by gun fire so far in 2022. Being a police officer is an extremely dangerous profession in certain parts of the US. Many of these officers were black but somehow their lives don't matter much compared to the lives of violent career criminals. Why is that?
The general public is becoming numb to the idea that every police shooting is a conspiracy, excessive use of force, or another example of systemic racism. The statistics overwhelmingly demonstrate that most police shootings are justified. In this case, when your attorney begins with a disclaimer that his client was "not a monster," it should indicate that although not a monster, he was engaging in activity that society is no longer willing to accept.
Many of us have been fighting for real police reform for decades, and in 2020 we were actually getting somewhere. Body cams, qualified immunity reform -- even police union reform was on the table!
as in if police stops stopping people they will not stop people who respond to being stopped with resistance fueled by lack of self control, drugs, mental problems and criminality and situations that escalate to all sorts unintended and unplanned consequences will therefore not exists? Defund police will help with it, or maybe police could just ignore certain "profiles" rather than be attracted to them. If they avoided Michael Brown or Mr. Floyd we would not have this conversation. That leaves one question: how applying this policy by neighborhoods plays out. In my neighborhood, please continue stopping people and busting them for spitting on sidewalks.
I am outraged the police shot a guy wearing a ski mask who was shooting at them.
he did not shoot AT them. so what he was wearing a ski mask. That doesn't mean you get to die.
Sounds like you possess an incredible ability to decipher just where a bullet will end up and the calm demeanor to then act accordingly. There are countless police departments who could use someone with your skill set. When are you signing up? Just think of the lives you could save!
The report during the chase was that a gun was fired. Based on what was heard and a flash of light. As Walker fled from the car, he was unarmed. Police found the gun and a loaded magazine in the car - no bullets were in the gun.
Don't get me wrong - I understand that the police believed he had a gun and reacted to what they thought was a threatening motion. I understand that police training is to shoot (basically empty their guns) when they believe they are threatened, and most officers must have believed this based on the shot volume. Should police training change? I don't know - but it should be reviewed.
I don't believe Walker deserved to be killed. Note that Ohio law permits basically anyone to carry a gun, concealed or otherwise. I too wish he would have stopped when the lights started flashing.
They found a shell casing that matched the caliber of the hand gun at the point the officer reported the shots were fired, seems to be a pretty good clue. Dropping a magazine requires a push of a button and loading it requires about the same.
Let's go through all the things he did wrong without firing the weapon. Lead the police on a high speed chase through town, didn't stop the car when he was surrounded, jumped out of the car wearing a ski mask and made a run for it.
" I understand that police training is to shoot (basically empty their guns) when they believe they are threatened,"
This is not what police are taught. In 20 years of law enforcement, 10 as a firearms instructor, we never once taught an officer to empty their weapon in a firefight. We trained them to fire enough shots to neutralize the threat. The issue is that during an armed encounter, there are a myriad of physiological changes a human being goes through. There are issues of auditory and visual exclusion, issues with fine motor skills, etc. It isn't possible to keep track of how many rounds you fired during a shooting.
I worked a number of police involved shootings where officers have fired only three rounds, and others where officers fired a magazine full of ammo. I fired seven rounds during my only shooting, but I told my PBA rep that I though I had only fired one or two.
As for Walker being killed, I can't speak for any of these particular officers. We always taught officers to shoot to stop the threat. This can mean incapacitating someone, or killing someone. Often times the outcome isn't known until the situation has completely stopped. And empty firearm? There is no way to tell if a firearm is loaded, or not. So you assume it's loaded and act accordingly.
Your understanding of what police are trained like could use an update from a non-activist or Hollywood POV. Zero departments train officer’s to unload on a threat.
The cops just heard a shot. they have no idea where it was directed, nor where it landed. Having a gun in this country is legal, if you're white. But this guy was already profiled and getting pulled over for what? The cops can't even tell us for what! When he stopped his car and got out, the cops screaming some unintelligible monster screams at him... the victim knows it only takes one cop to start shooting before he's dead, he's running for his life. What did he even do to deserve this punishment. I'm truly shocked at everyone that thinks that any black person that does anything... ANYTHING, is just cause to get killed by the cops who make their rules, and follow their OWN laws, and aren't held accountable in 99% of their actions. You people are monsters.
You had me going but now I realize this is performance art. Would have been better if you hadn’t laid it on quite so thick. I give it a B-
Thank God white women like you are here to disparage your own nation and stand tall with felons. Thank you, you've done enough virtue signaling today.
“ they have no idea where it was directed” Are you a child? What do you think is going to happen if you flee the police, shoot a gun, and then run? It sounds a lot like suicide by cop to me.
staceface72: "I'm truly shocked at everyone that thinks that any black person that does anything... ANYTHING, is just cause to get killed by the cops who make their rules"
Um... could you identify the content -- here -- that implies these delusions about "everyone" and "anything"?
You're on Matt Taibbi's site, remember -- not some MSM cherry-picked, loner / tiny nutgroup's page, oh-so-easily found all over this country of 330 MILLION people.
You assume that police pulled over a man because he was black despite knowing that he was masked and therefor the police couldn't know his race. You also dismiss the fact that he was firing his gun at the police - because police officers deserve to die? It seems you're the monster here.
They also saw the muzzle flash. You're allowed to own a gun, you're not allowed to shoot it off inside a city for obvious reasons.
In all earnestness, what does it matter what he was being pulled over for? Do you propose that we have a system where if you are being pulled over for no seatbelt, you then flee, creating a high speed chase, fire a gun in the general direction of police during the chase, and then lead them on a foot chase, that the feature of those events that dictates how police can react is the seatbelt violation?
Give it up Stace just come out and say "you hate cops" and get it over with.
"The cops just heard a shot. they have no idea where it was directed, nor where it landed."
They heard it come from the car they were chasing. They saw the flash come from the car they were chasing. It was directed at the police. Where the shot landed is irrelevant. If where it landed was relevant that would mean cops cannot return fire without forensics and ballistics testing. Which, of course, is patently absurd.
Hi Karen ...
"The cops just heard a shot. they have no idea where it was directed, nor where it landed."
The more you write, the dumber you sound. Stop getting your knowledge of police work from TV shows. Pinpointing the origin of a gunshot, and where that shot may have ended up, is nearly impossible unless the firearm is being shot in close proximity, and or you can hear the projectile striking an area nearby.
"But this guy was already profiled and getting pulled over for what? The cops can't even tell us for what! "
That all depends on the status of an investigation. Police and prosecutors withhold evidence from public view for any number of reasons.
"I'm truly shocked at everyone that thinks that any black person that does anything... ANYTHING, is just cause to get killed by the cops who make their rules, "
And I'm no longer shocked by the criminal stupidity some engage in because they think with emotions instead of logic.
Rob Hustle (who is POC) had a video from several years years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGPXOn9qJs -or- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvRDpxMlu4 for lyrics only) that did at least a couple of interesting things: (1) recognized (and explicitly showed) there are victims of all races and classes, and (2) identified the main (not sole) culprit as police academy military indoctrination. Hmmm ...
The cops claimed he shot at them. They have no footage or evidence that he shot; so they want you to trust them that he shot at them.
Horseshit that he shot, skeptical unless I see proof. They didn't have dashcams, how convenient.
There is footage showing what appears to be a muzzle flash from his car. But perhaps it was his camera flash as he uploaded a selfie to Facebook, while driving at high speed and endangering everyone else.
"Horseshit that he shot, skeptical unless I see proof. "
But I know, without proof, that he didn't shoot at them!
How is it possible for you to know whether or not he was attempting to shoot AT them?
Wearing a ski mask, fleeing from police, and firing a weapon when being pursued may not mean you should die, but they DO mean you own the outcome, because you brought it on yourself.
It's not possible.
How do you know he wasn't shooting AT them? And nobody is saying he deserved to be shot BECAUSE he was wearing a ski mask.
Funny, also, that you omit the fact that he failed to stop -fleeing and leading police on a vehicle chase- then exited the vehicle and lead them on another chase on foot.
Like
"he did not shoot AT them...."
Is there a voting mechanism that allows awarding a prize for the stupidest fucking comment in a thread?
I am really tired of hearing this kind of stupid remark, very American these days: when a suspect does a series of obviously bad actions that spook and confuse the police and ends up shot to death, they would say “He didn’t deserve to die for that!”. Of course he didn’t, but stop being hypocritical and pretending that the police should behave like a cyborgs with no fear, complete detachment and perfectly calibrated response. What is this, a ridiculous game where you want to push it and see how many dangerous things you can do in a country awash in guns and crazy criminals before you get shot?
No, I want the cops to be held accountable for their actions! The police are out of control in most aspects and they have WAY too much power than any gang of type-A pussies with guns should have. They need to be reigned in, given distinct scope over their jurisdictions and not able to patrol neighborhoods, doing whatever they feel like doing. Fuck! It doesn't have to be this way! Why does everyone assume that it does??!
Typical spoiled child attitude, completely detached from reality and entitled. You should move to a country where the police is not just sometimes poorly trained, given too much power and afraid of criminals who outgun them, like the US, but a country where the police is your ENEMY for real, because they’re totally corrupt and out of control. Lack of perspective results in woke absurdity (although I can’t help assuming there might also be some natural stupidity involved).
Our criminal justice system can be likened to a piano hanging over the sidewalk, and it occasionally and randomly falls and crushes someone, usually an innocent and sometimes even the police.
Spend a night or two accompanying a tactical squad in Chicago; it's frightening, and highly educational. The "good stuff" never sees an inch of column space in any journalistic enterprise. The bad stuff leads, because it sells.
You need to get out of whatever bubble you exist in and educate yourself. Lots of bad cops, and lots of avoidable tragedies. Then, there's the other side, which you don't seem to recognize exists.
It strikes me that both the police and the criminals are out of control. And why not? In many jurisdictions the DA won't prosecute. And we know the police face few repercussions for their excesses unless things blow up too badly for their union to cover. So life and death encounters it is.
In few cases do either cops or suspects deserve to die. And never without due process of law. The cops do need to do better. That said, discharging a weapon while fleeing police does not seem a wise thing to do. And emphasizing that a suspect was unarmed when shot while sidestepping that he was very much armed and had discharged a weapon in the presence of the cops earlier in the confrontation seems designed to inflame tensions while convincing people skeptical of police excesses that you really can't trust the press. Idiots all around.
You need to get out of America and I suggest you go burn up in the sun so you can become a part of "marginalized" community. I suggest you move to South Africa and then get fresh with the historical marginalized majority. Then again, I think you DO want to be brutally victimized by the "marginalized" so you can claim white supremacy or die a martyr to wokism. What is wrong with you 😂. You sound like a jihadists or a christian zealot from the Westboro Baptist Church. I'm really starting to see a similarity between the woke and Jim Jones.
Accountability works both ways. Pull over and use your words with the officer.
Because "everyone" does not "assume that it does".
So, by this deduction, the act of shooting randomly is OK. This is much like the Chicago shooting where the kid was running away with an automatic weapon, and when he spun and raised his hands, he dropped the weapon...so he was "unarmed".
Actually, they do have footage of a flash. Google it.
It may seem unfair...to you...but those really are the rules. His actions were not only criminal, they were stupid.
really? What actions? What was the FIRST action that made him a criminal deserving to die? The cops can't tell you what he was getting pulled over for. And then they chased him... why??? Haven't we seen the outcome of getting chased by the pigs for nothing? kinda seems like they are just trying to kill people, but obviously, on this thread, I'm the only one. Matt Taibbi doesn't deserve this kind of inhumanity on his page.
Any time a white woman says pigs unironically an angel loses their wings
"chased by the pigs"
LOLOLOL
thanks for the 70s flashback!
you obviously trained at the Patty Hearst School of Dramatic Arts
Probably his first action that “made him a criminal” was likely failure to comply....but definitely not “deserving to die”. He escalated by fleeing....still not “deserving to die”. Firing a weapon? Now the dynamics have changed. Now it’s definitely escalated to life and death for both parties. Unfortunately for the suspect, “self defense” only works for the cops in a situation like this. Many, but definitely not all, of the situations that have been caught on camera show some sort of escalation. AVOID ESCALATION, ESPECIALLY WITH COPS. The ones who haven’t figured this out are the ones who wind up on the evening news. And if you happen to be taking drugs (legal or otherwise, or drinking) that make you edgy, stay off the streets for your own good. And everyone else’s.
"chased by the pigs"
"the pigs"????
Was Mr. Peabody not able to fix the Way Back Machine...leaving you stuck in 1969?
He fired a pistol out of the window of his car during a police chase. End of story.
You are a child. What does Matt Tabbi have to do with this? Chased by the pigs? Is it 1973 all over again.
Try making a reasoned argument.
No, you're not the only one.
I totally agree with you. There is no justification for what happened to Jayland Walker. Nada. Niente. Zilch.
It was a routine traffic stop late at night. (The cops _can_ tell you what he was getting pulled over for, by the way—two lights out on the back of the car.)
I think the whole protocol for what ensues when a person eludes a routine traffic stop needs to be restructured. If the two pursuing officers have the license plate—easy enough to write that down before they turn on the flashing lights—then the case can be followed up and whatever justice is involved in making sure that people don't drive with lights out on the back of their cars can be served—without a hail of bullets.
If you shoot a gun out the window leading police on a high-speed chase and then jump out of the car with a ski mask on, sprinting away from the cops while they’re screaming at you to stop and tasing you, you are begging to be shot. You maybe don’t know it if you’re a complete moron, but you’re begging for it nonetheless.
Everybody knows that in the state of Ohio, in July, all motorists have a ski mask in their car and use whenever they see a police car. The flash of light must have been not from a gun but the flash from a camera. It’s not illegal to take a flash picture when the police chases you, just like it’s not illegal to wear a ski mask! It’s only common sense that is illegal now in America.
That’s the problem, as an Ohioan, I can attest that the ski mask rule is only in effect in June, not July. Walker had his months confused/s
It's been wokesplained to me that expecting people to be punctual is racist.
How dare you!
If you fire a gun out of the window of your car, you are shooting at someone and presenting a grave risk to your target and the community at large. This shooting should not be considered “controversial”.
Unfortunately Stace none of us were there so how do "we" know ?
Our Justice system was created for a reason, all are "innocent till proven guilty."
Mayhem solves nothing it actually can as we know cause innocent people to be killed for just being caught in the middle.
So you say. What if he just did what was request and stop?
Why was he wearing a ski mask in July?
He thought he was in Australia?
You should probably refrain from commenting on something you know nothing about.
Are you f'ing serious?
Are you serious?
If it were me, I’d shoot at him too.
He was wearing a ski mask so they wouldn't be able to see his face, obviously. Why? that's for him to know. who cares????????? what's it fucking matter? I personally wonder if he was trying to kill himself. After all he'd just lost his fiance. Now the cops are chasing him and he knows he fuckin dead. Maybe him shooting the gun was an accident? Why did he run? https://youtu.be/NWyQXzqEuX4 (if the link doesn't work, go to youtube and search amber ruffin-white people just don't understand police brutality.) here's a quick video telling you why black people run (or don't) and still get killed. Standing down means giving up. The guy stopped running and turned around, his hands were doing what anyone else's would do when raising them, going from in front of your, to the sides and up? nope... he didn't have time to put them up.
It must be extremely gratifying to be the one good white person.
ok cool, so you understand you are a bad white person. good.
I am a black person. I do not and wouldn’t run from the police. That is stupid and dangerous. The frequency of police shooting peaceful unarmed black men today is so infinitesimally small that to act in an aggressive or erratic manner is exceptionally irrational. The fact that you seem to be approving of black people behaving like this person behaved is grotesque. Police kill unarmed white people as well. They kill unarmed people. It happens. Sometimes police make mistakes, sometimes police are not trained well, sometimes police are scared, and sometimes police are horrible people. Regardless, no black person should have it in their mind that an encounter with the police is going to likely end in their death if they do not flee or fire weapons. That is delusional and dangerous. Encouraging it is immoral.
Bingo! Surprised I had to read so far to find your chonk of sanity. Anybody who thinks they need to fight their way out of a police stop is creating that outcome. Those cops should sleep well, they are not to blame.
When angry people with guns scream at you to do something, I suggest you comply. Thank me later.
"He was wearing a ski mask so they wouldn't be able to see his face, obviously. Why? that's for him to know. who cares????????? what's it fucking matter?"
But you also wrote, "But this guy was already profiled and getting pulled over for what?
How could he be "profiled" if they couldn't see his face?
and you aren't answering the question of what was he pulled over for? Why did he NEED the scrutiny bestowed upon him? a tail light out? a license plate light out? what's the good reason for why he was chased and killed in a hail of bullets when he'd never even been in trouble before. If this was your kid you'd be thinking quite differently about all this.
you're assuming he had his mask on while driving around, but then again: It's a free country!! So what's the problem? And just for arguments sake, your hands are the same color as your skin... so there's that, but also I'd be keen to know the percentage of POC in the neighborhood the cops was patrolling in the first place to make an assumption on whether being able to see him was reason enough to get a second look.
73 likes for a comment that belies the core point of the article--that we don't have enough information due to police not following guidelines that were put into place following Ferguson? Seriously?
Think of the root comment here as a hypothetical: IF a guy in a ski mask was shooting at police, THEN the police would be justified in shooting back. And lo and behold, people have opinions on that!
People are going straight the comments, as Ford Fischer’s News2Share crew posted on YouTube, which of course in their wisdom turned around and "age"-restricted it. Cuz YouTube good citizens and all, crusading against disinformation, and uncomfortable things in general.
I couldn't care less about opinions on hypotheticals that (once again) have nothing to do with a well written and researched article.
Feel free to increase your hypothetical anti-disinformation work or paid reply count with someone else.
That's right, the world isn't perfect. People will respond to articles, even without the academic rigor that is right and proper, nor with the gravitas commensurate with Matt Taibbi's exalted status in the world of journalism. Believe me, I feel your angst! 'Tis both a crime and a pity, what with all the troubles in the world ... but it is what it is.
I guess we should all stay home on Halloween and not wear a mask on our way to a costume party - we might get killed if stopped by a cop - seems from the comments that this is okay
Supremely ignorant comment. You lose the Internet for today.
Question: why did this suspect flee from police wearing a ski mask?
Answer: because his clown suit was at the dry cleaners.
The number of times he was shot is irrelevant. If he shouldn't have been shot, then a single bullet is too many and the shooter needs to go to prison. If it was justified for the police to shoot him, then one bullet or sixty doesn't change the situation a bit.
It has to do with the militarization of the police, a natural outgrowth of a national culture and politics of violence.
Guy with ski mask on (standard door dash attire) flees from the cops (who can't tell his race because of the mask) and shoots at the cops. He then makes a run for it and turns to the cops who all fire at the same time. It always amazes me that people who've never fired a gun before, or have been shot at are so impressed by the number of bullets fired within the span of a few seconds by a group of cops, all of whom are worried about being killed.
Pretty simple. You see the lights behind you, you pull over, respond to requests by LE and you have a 99.9999999999999999% chance of waking up the next day. Flee, fire a gun from your vehicle, run from the car while being commanded to stop and it’s 50/50 if you’ll make it home.
Exactly! When did it become justifiable to break away and flee from the police? Especially when you're wearing a ski mask and have already fired a weapon toward them?
We too often expect law enforcement to achieve perfection in the use of force, when the obvious answer is, "Don't Run!"
Ummm...when I was a teen running from the cops was a pretty normal Saturday night. None of them ever shot at us.
Of course, running and getting caught was usually a one way ticket to a good ass kicking.
No gun fire though.
One night my buddy and I had talked some adult into getting us 4 bottles of Mad Dog 20/20. A beat cop saw us walking along on our way to meet our girlfriends and set off in pursuit. My buddy yelled "head for the rock lot." ("Rock lots" were what we called empty lots where houses once stood. They filled them with these weird gray rocks in order to keep the dust down. I think.)
Back in the day every cop wore hard soled shoes and I will never forget the look on that cops face when his hard soled shoes hit those rocks and his legs jetted out from under him. My buddy & I back pedaled out that lot laughing maniacally as we both flipped him the bird.
Again, no gun fire.
You guys were typical stupid teens-not wearing ski masks and shooting out of a moving vehicle.
FWIW, the SC banned firing on fleeing, unarmed/non threatening suspects in the early 70s, the Memphis PD had to change it’s use of force policy rather significantly as an outcome of the case.
I'm not unsympathetic to the police. My brother in law is a police officer. He's one of the most stand up guys that I know. Coached baseball, hockey & football in his community on top of being a full time cop.
His take on shootings like this actually stunned me. He said that many police officers are complete assholes & not very bright assholes either. But the hiring pool is often not very large so police forces sometimes have to take whoever they can get.
Maybe that's an excuse & maybe it isn't but my in law hates public displays like the Ohio incident for the simple reason that they make his job harder every time they happen.
I don't think the cops shot at my friends & I because it was still pre-crack epidemic America where poor white, brown & black trash weren't packing heat on a regular basis.
We used to have semi-regular street brawls with black kids. They were always known to carry knives but guns were never an issue. Hell, I'm white and I always carried a switchblade. Still carry a well sharpened knife that is right at the edge of the legal limit whenever I leave the house. Old habits die hard I suppose.
But I think that the huge influx of Contra coke in the 80s along with the attendant influx of military grade weaponry, much of it I would bet came indirectly from the US government through the Contras, drastically changed the landscape.
To be fair I would love an article that also showed the percentage of black folk caught carrying illegal firearms during routine traffic stops versus the percentage of white folks caught carrying illegal firearms.
Or an article showing the effect on the black community of idiotic comments like Spike Lee's where he said that "black people are being hunted in America."
I would also love to see "judging from a safe distance" liberals actually become cops and put their liberal ideas into action while their asses are on the line.
Also I believe there were two gents, 1 at Reuters & 1 at an Ivy League school, who wanted to crunch the numbers and prove BLM claims that the police shoot more black suspects than white but actually found the exact opposite. Both were allegedly canned for trying to publicize those findings. The irony being that the Ivy League guy was black.
But whenever I hear some outlandish number of rounds being fired I always picture the Sonny Corleone execution scene from The Godfather & I wonder how the fuck that is possible in real life. People aren't deer. They don't take a pumpkin ball and then keep running for miles so you have to track them. Humans, if they're not chemically enhanced, usually just fall over after 1 or 2 bullets.
Having said all of that I am not in the defund the police camp. The realities of America require us to "pay guys with guns to protect us from guys with guns." I don't see that changing any time soon.
I also believe that every American, irregardless of sex & color, have the right to own & bear legally obtained firearms. I've lived smack dab in a neighborhood of mostly well armed Trump lovers for a couple of decades and one thing that we don't have here is an appreciable crime problem. I own weapons and have no problem with them. I find most politicians & media quislings really have no clue about guns & their non stop stream of half truths & mistakes just continually muddy the issue.
MD20/20. A blast from the past.
BTW I don't like guns, altho am related to and know many people with guns, who would NEVER pull them out to shoot at anybody in an area with any people. Jesus.
It's time for the cops to pull out of Chicagostan and everywhere else where police are accused of committing "atrocities." Time to let everybody figure out what they want their community to be. They don't want cops, so be it. The cops should move to the Burbs, or wherever people want "law and order." There will be desolation and guns left in the inner cities. Of course this is outrageous for this to happen to these people, but, . . . Thanks, Dems, who have set the tone for more than half a century.
Here's a couple more:
Night Train & Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.
All 3 were nice cheap entry tickets to the land of the hammered.
George Floyd didn’t run.
Correct, and the cop who killed him was convicted of murder. Entirely different set of circumstances.
'fired a weapon toward them' is an assumption here. when you are a person of color, the 'obvious answer' isn't so fucking obvious when anyway you turn, you get killed. just put yourself in other people's shoes dude. and if you can't do that, then go and get educated by people who actually know what it's like to be a POC in America. But you have got to stop assuming that everyone else gets the same treatment you do, just because that's your experience. Humanity is supposed to learn from eachother, not just sit in your own little hovel thinking everything you've done is exactly what happened to everyone else in that situation.
Hello white female staceface. As a person of color(tm) I suggest you stop thinking that every person of color’s experience is the same and we all think alike. Or--that some of our experiences are more valid because we share some of your political perspectives.
Please learn from me when I say that I am more afraid of walking through a random majority black neighborhood than walking through a random police precinct. Given that this person who was killed by the police ran from them in the dark, and fired a gun, I can guarantee you that what happened to them doesn’t make me worry about interacting with the police. Why? Because i won’t be firing a gun while fleeing from them.
Your perspective, based on your comment, and the perspective you share with many other “liberals” and “progressives” is ultimately more harmful to black people than, for example, Trump’s. That’s right, your attitude toward black people is worse than Trump’s.
Your hero assumed he could fire a gun out the car window while being pursued by police and there would be no consequences. It appears there was.
You likely believe he was bird hunting at 2 AM with his ski mask on?
Hopefully you did not procreate.
"go and get educated by people who actually know what it's like to be a POC in America" LOL
Only white lady saviors believe there is one single knowable way to "be a POC in America", which is a preposterous idea based on a hysterical fantasy that 2022 America is apartheid South Africa, with underclass blacks living in daily fear for their lives.
Excluding African-Americans, everyone else who could be included under the umbrella of "POC" from East Indians to West Indians, from Nigerians to Chinese, do remarkably well in America at building nice and safe middle-class lives for themselves and their families.
And as for African-Americans, we all know there is a major problem with underclass poverty and violence, but even then there is also a thriving middle class and these violent police encounters affect only a small sliver of usually repeat offenders.
I know I'm just a random jerk on the internet and hey, i wouldnt listen to me either, but you should know that the tactics you use of denouncing police as "pigs" and labeling all your enemies as "white" this and that, make as many or more enemies as they do allies.
Doesn’t firing a gun out the window cross a red line even if it’s not aimed at the cops? Someone indiscriminately firing a gun out of a car window is a threat to the community no?
Genuinely curious what you know about being a person of color?
She learned all about POC in her Gender Studies class in college! 'Nuff said!
In response to staceface72's focus on racism as the be-all and end-all of police brutality:
Rob Hustle -- who is POC -- made a music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGPXOn9qJs -or- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvRDpxMlu4 for lyrics only) several years years ago that did at least a couple of interesting things:
(1) recognized, and explicitly showed, there are victims of different races and different classes, and
(2) identified the *main* (though not sole) culprit as the emergent police academy military-style indoctrination. Although not stated in the video, the latter is a well-documented phenomenon that accelerated following 9/11.
If you submit to YouTube's "age"-check, you can see the first version, which contains a series of corresponding police-in-action videos (probably not for the faint-of-heart), rather than just hear the lyrics.
Hmmm ...
Videos lacking context are useless. Try again.
Much less than 50/50....
It ma be pretty simple if you believe the police narrative, and ignore the loss of BWC footage.
Not at all. Is this guy available for trial?
If not, I wonder why?
That's exactly the point, if he was innocent no reason to flee.
Rittenhouse walked up to police and told them that he shot someone.
Thanks for making my point for me
Pure, unadulterated bullshit.
The problem with police cameras is not that they show too little, it's that they show too much. Americans can now see the violence and plain stupidity that cops are called on to referee. And rather than be ashamed, the left doubles down, Career criminal should be a safe occupation. We must protect these young men from all consequences. But when they kill each other? Crickets.
100%. If you get assaulted while working in a NYC bodega, and defend yourself by stabbing the gang loser in a $300 shirt but no job beating you, you end up in Rikers. But if you are the thug with gold jewelry, $300 t-shirts, and no source of income you get released on bail before having your charges dropped in the name of “social justice” every single time.
The left only cares on election years. The Cafeteria worker Philando Castile was 100% shot for no other reason than how he appeared. He did everything 100% right after being pulled over for being Black. But that cop, who murdered a guy for his appearance, got off Scott free. I guess as long as the cop shooting someone is Hispanic, it’s fine to the left.
It’s pathetic to ignore Philando Castile but glorify a loser like George Floyd who was on so many drugs, and so hyped up he would have died anyway. A guy who was a life long criminal, assaulted a pregnant woman, and has ZERO redeeming qualities is who the left wants to glorify for Black people. Ridiculous and racist.
Our society has lost any sense of justice and morality. We ask cope to keep us safe but then leftists burn down cities because the cops won’t sit back to be bullet fodder for criminal thugs. Sad.
Philando Castile was a martyr for the 2nd Amendment/CC holders. It is absolutely pathetic how the NRA refused to stand up for him publicly and demand justice.
100%!!!
Castile was murdered by a very afraid cop.
Floyd would probably have died from his drug overdose, but the cops were scared of him and ended up facing murder charges for holding him down, immobile. Fear and frustration and adrenaline rush happens with cops as well. Doubtful that it can be overcome by training, and doing less sometimes, rather than violently controlling the situation, only comes from experience or watching a wiser, experienced colleague.
this particular victim had no police record.... so what's your fucking point here?
That shooting a gun indiscriminately in any direction is a crime. The end.
Until he ran from the police over a traffic stop...
Cheap journalism along the lines of “if it bleeds it leads”. It seems way too early to imply the police did something wrong - though they may have - without a thorough investigation. Let the facts take you wherever they lead, then write a story. I expect better of a writer like Matt.
no... you expect him to spout the bullshit you believe and nothing else. Fairweather fan then. we don't need the skewed results of the cops investigating themselves when we can see with our own eyes what happened. Granted in Akron, they are going to send this shooting off to a supposedly "independent investigator group." Who that group is, we shall see, but based on the overwhelmingly white opinion that "cops are the good guys," I believe the independent group will have plenty of bias as well, but you never know. Here in Denver, the independent investigation into Elijah McClaine's death did come back with real, scathing reviews about the Aurora police Department and their way of doing things. What changes its brought to the APD is yet to be seen. In conclusion, we will probably be told by Akron's independent investigation, that the cops were in the wrong and grossly negligent in caring for Jayland Walker's safety. That's obvious for anyone who has eyes.
I made it very clear that I don’t “believe “ anything, only that the facts aren’t in and throwing emotional red (OK, blue) meat out there is not real journalism. Sounds like your mind is already made up except for who should conduct the investigation. BLM?
It's going to be very difficult to accomplish anything in the face of the national fetish for militarism and violence which shows up at the top and all the way down.
Hey, don't bother people with the facts, or lack of them.
You pull a gun and shoot in the presence of cops, expect a few mags to be dumped into your body. This isn't some new revelation.
I’m convinced it was suicide by cop. His fiancé died a month ago, he ran from a traffic stop knowing a police chase would ensue, a shot was fired from his vehicle (caught on security camera), when finally stopped he lept from the passenger side of the car wearing a ski mask leaving behind on the front seat a pistol and wedding band, took off disregarding police orders to stop, and apparently (not conclusive from bodycam) turned and appeared to be reaching for his waist. Guaranteed ticket to the afterlife with mom winning the ghetto reparations lottery.
Of course, to look into the situation any deeper than “cops kill wonderful, loving son for no reason beyond being black” is white supremacy and racism defined. Accountability for one’s actions never enter the discussion.
90 shots, 60 on target is excessive by any measure. Why 9 cops were chasing is another question that should be asked. A runner from a traffic stop shouldn’t require half the department to respond.
Basic fundamental strategy/tactic if one wants to prevail, which is the idea behind police departments. Prevailing. Get there as soon as possible with the most people as possible. There's a reason that even a minor traffic stop gets back up immediately.
It could very well have been suicide by cop. Or not. Doesn't matter. Guy shooting randomly out the window, blasting out and running...he's going down whether he planned it or not.
I like your theory, but reject the number of shots fired as being excessive. Cops are notoriously bad shots under stress (I would be too). They’ve even been known to miss the target with ALL the multiple magazines emptied. This time they were either really close or “lucky”. Dead is dead no matter how many rounds find their mark.
Agree completely that the number of shots fired was beyond excessive and has provided a convenient rallying cry for the defund crowd. But ask yourself this: If instead only a single shot had been fired by LE and the suspect still died, would the public response really be any different?
I don’t disagree. Sadly, the only blacks lives that matter are those miscreants killed by police in the commission of a crime, and only due to the political noise for the left and the financial windfall for the family. Otherwise, no one gives a crap, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin.
When do pawns realize they are pawns?
The gun was actually in the back seat, they just photographed it on the driver seat for effect or some reason.
Back in the real Bad Neighborhood, there are never these national stories, as the role players don't match either the racial profile, and there were no cops involved. And it was a 16yr old girl who was stabbed to death in broad daylight.
Everybody reading this knows why the Corporate Press wouldn't touch this story with a 10 foot pole.
https://education-ny.blogspot.com/2022/06/10th-grade-black-girl-dead-no-protest.html
Black Lives Matter -- but only when there is police involvement.
Yup.
Enough with the “dubious traffic stop” horseradish. I’ve been stopped for expired tabs, for making an illegal U-turn, for speeding of course, etc. so have my wife, kids, friends of all races. It happens. What we didn’t do was give the cops a bunch of mumble-mouth attitude, lead them on high-speed chases, shoot at them, flee on foot, struggle and wrestle with them, get tased, etc.
As a result, the cops didn’t shoot any of us. Yet young Black male criminals, after doing all of the above, keep getting shot in cities and towns by what we’re supposed to believe is a nationwide scourge of highly-selective racist cops.
Please…
True.
I got a speeding ticket a few months ago. It was startling and frankly unnerving to see the flashing red lights and have a police officer commanding me authoritatively for license and registration, but I fully cooperated and he became friendly. He reduced my ticket to a lesser violation and that was that.
No drama.
And I was doing 40 in a 25 mph zone where it was easy to do 50 without thinking. Oh well. I was speeding and I got caught. It happens. That’s how traffic laws are enforced. The officer told me during the stop that the local community had pressed the police there for better control of speeders, given lots of kids live in the neighborhood.
Considering that I pretty much always exceed the limit when not in a residential area, it's somewhat incredible that I'm not regularly nabbed for it, although I've had half a dozen stops over decades. All deserved, and not something I'm proud of necessarily. I drive a lot, but am highly focused on it while doing so, which leads me to believe I have spotted the traps far more frequently than I have been caught in them.
Regardless, when it happens, I certainly don't enjoy it, but I can't say it was ever unreasonable, despite an occasional power tripper.
In the mid-90's I was returning to the DFW area from a hunting trip near Rocky Mountain National Park. My sedan was loaded with 2 rifles in the trunk, cases of beer in the back seat (good beer was hard to find in TX at that time), and a .357 (unloaded in a case with a full speed loader) under my seat. I still had CO plates and DL, having recently moved. It's a fairly long drive, and I was hauling ass just East of Amarillo on a relatively uncrowded State highway with 2 lanes/direction. A trooper in a Camaro was Westbound and saw me passing a semi and couldn't help but notice the difference in speed. He blew through the median and caught up shortly thereafter.
I had the windows down, hands on the wheel, and paperwork on the seat when he approached. I admitted that I knew why I was stopped. He saw the beer and asked if I was aware of the laws on transporting that much, to which I honestly replied that I did not.
He then asked if there was anything else of which he should be aware, and I disclosed all of the firearms. He asked to see them all, which I happily obliged. He called in the serials to see if any had been reported stolen.
Once cleared, he complimented the revolver (a limited edition), and asked if he could look it over more closely. He aimed it out in the distance while we stood by the side of the road, played with the cylinder and checked the action (I often wonder what passersby thought might have been going on). He really liked it. I jokingly asked if I could have a look at his pistol in exchange. He chuckled.
Having asked my destination, he said that it would be in my best interest to slow down, and that were he to discover that I was popped for speeding down the road, he would be there to haul me off personally. A warning.
I can't say that I didn't break the limit afterwards, but I sure as hell kept to what other drivers were doing rather than being the outlier - so he did his job.
I have also been railroaded by one that blatantly lied about circumstances (to such a degree that it could have been easily disproved had the judge been interested in anything other than the officer's word). So I'm aware there are bastards out there. But anecdotally I believe most just want to get through the workday like anyone else does. No one is out looking for sass, obstinance, and disrespect. If that's what one is offering, one shouldn't be surprised if one only encounters bastard cops.
Let me ask you this followup question as well:
Did you or your loved ones also seek trouble and attention from the police by illegally tinting your windows, modifying your engine or add horns to blast +120db noise, and/or install blindingly bright headlights?
I'm guessing the answer is "no." Funny how people who don't blatantly and knowingly push against the law and seek trouble generally don't find it, right?
If you are going to be a criminal; don't call attention to yourself. Don't be argumentative or be guilty of the most serious thing;"contempt of cop". Do your fighting in court, not in the streets. There's still lot's of opportunities out there, avail yourself of one. Is the system just, no, hell no. The real criminals live in mansions, not in the streets. Your job is to survive and try and thrive.
In a podcast shortly after the death of George Floyd, Glenn Loury noted despairingly, in a country the size of ours, and with as many police-civilian interactions, there will _always_ be another incident for race-baiters to exploit.
True. And there will always be ‘journalists” willing to race bait for money.,Too many. And too few willing to write the all-too-human narratives.
These stops may indeed be dubious. Many people pulled over and ticketed get a bit peeved and believe they were singled out somehow when others weren’t. But what evidence is there that white kids in the same circumstances who did the same things would not have seen the same results. Police procedures are fair game for criticism. But at least do it with integrity.
I’ve been singled out most of my adult life. I was fortunate enough to live and work in an upscale community, but not so fortunate that the car I drove was less than 5 years old (more like 20). I rented space for my contracting equipment under an overpass and sometimes, mostly in the short daylight hours of winter, left in the dark. I’ve been stopped and frisked numerous times, sometimes with my hands being held behind my back. They always find my pocket knife (legal). Sometimes they run my name (nothing to see there), and afterwards I generally thank them for doing their job in a professional manner and keeping an eye on things. Do I enjoy it? No. But I do recognize that from their perspective, I’m suspicious. And I’ve never been on the evening news. Pretty simple.
craazyman — A work friend used to reminisce about her working class Italian neighborhood in New Jersey, where the cops would routinely “tune up” (white) people at traffic stops. I think this was usually when, like Rodney King, they had forced the cops to risk their lives.
What has happened to Matt Taibi? He used to be a rational voice, it seems now he's mouthpiece for the irrationally insane!
It’s indeed curious and worth noting. My reason for saying so is that it was LITERALLY from one column to another: the one about FBI dressed up as agitators at some gay event in Idaho, and he TOTALLY missed the story. It’s been one after another like that since. Wonder what’s going on? It just seems so deliberate. Change of financial incentive probably, like almost everything else…
P.S. Just wanted to add, it's the same with the MT's associated podcast Useful Idiots. Started as a wry, critical look at the general idiocy of elite/MSM behavior, and suddenly switched to a typical partisan, MSNBC-style grind on anything not explicitly Alt-Left. What a disappointment.
Wasn't it just an expected shift from having Aaron sub in on UI? I mean I really like Aaron but I consider Matt way more rationally close to center on some issues and he pushed back against Katie with a different perspective sometimes. Aaron's probably Left of Katie and I don't see him respectfully disagree with her like Matt does, instead just going over the Left of her.
I still see Matt as consistent. He's just giving air to Ford's perspective here and being open to it. I think it was a Miss this time as many here do, but I understand it.
There's still more than plenty to fix about Policing in this country, I think they just picked a bad Hill to die on with this Report.
Matt is very fond of the videos Ford produces, as he says in this article - I think he said it was his favorite source for videos. Also evidenced by using one of their videos several different times, as his entire substack article, with very little or no commentary by Matt. I see that as laziness to put any effort into his own pieces, but I also find the videos from this outfit usually tilt left to one degree or another.
He's one man who's always got a lot of projects going. Idk I watched most of the other Fischer vids and while they do tend to lean Left and regardless whether or not I agreed with them this was the only one I thought wasn't reasonable.
The last one - about the van full of "right wing protesters" wink wink - could have been more critically evaluated but I understand why he didn't think it was worth digging into given Ford's perspective.
133 police officers have been killed and 258 injured by gun fire so far in 2022. Being a police officer is an extremely dangerous profession in certain parts of the US. Many of these officers were black but somehow their lives don't matter much compared to the lives of violent career criminals. Why is that?
Because the narrative is dominated by hypocritical Alt-Left racists.
The general public is becoming numb to the idea that every police shooting is a conspiracy, excessive use of force, or another example of systemic racism. The statistics overwhelmingly demonstrate that most police shootings are justified. In this case, when your attorney begins with a disclaimer that his client was "not a monster," it should indicate that although not a monster, he was engaging in activity that society is no longer willing to accept.
Many of us have been fighting for real police reform for decades, and in 2020 we were actually getting somewhere. Body cams, qualified immunity reform -- even police union reform was on the table!
BLM set that back decades.
"Problematic stops"
as in if police stops stopping people they will not stop people who respond to being stopped with resistance fueled by lack of self control, drugs, mental problems and criminality and situations that escalate to all sorts unintended and unplanned consequences will therefore not exists? Defund police will help with it, or maybe police could just ignore certain "profiles" rather than be attracted to them. If they avoided Michael Brown or Mr. Floyd we would not have this conversation. That leaves one question: how applying this policy by neighborhoods plays out. In my neighborhood, please continue stopping people and busting them for spitting on sidewalks.