Quote:
Originally Posted by Always Fondling
No one is suggesting that cops who make questionable arrests due to over-policing should be "gone after."
Rather, I'd like to believe that decent, non-authoritarians believe that cops who kill unarmed people (without extraordinary extenuating circumstances) should not be allowed to hide behind their badge, even if they are working for a racist system.
There is a big disconnect in your thinking here.
To the extent that cops start getting jailed for unjustified shootings, the mechanism through which that would reduce unjustified shootings is that it would stop cops from over-policing.
I think the disconnect comes from not really understanding violence. Once a cop initiates a hostile encounter, everything changes. There is no more controlling the situation. It has a life of it’s own. The other person could immediately and clearly cooperate, they could immediately and clearly start to fight, or they could be anywhere in a vast dimly-lit sea of grey in between the two.
Once anything other than immediate and clear cooperation occurs, all parties involved are on really thin ice. It’s not a matter of slow, careful, methodical escalations until the situation is resolved. There is no time or space for that in the realm of violence. The cold truth of it is, whoever uses overwhelming debilitating force first is the one that gets to keep breathing. Every second you allow the other guy to stay in the fight brings with it enormous risk to yourself.
This why you will NEVER see me starting a dispute with a stranger over bull****. If I were to do that, I would have zero control over how bad things got.
Under the current model of criminal justice in this country, 90% of a cop’s job is going around starting disputes with strangers over bull****.
I wasn’t mad at George Zimmerman because he shot Trayvon Martin. I was mad at him because he followed Trayvon Martin and started a dispute with him for no good reason.
That was the crime. The shooting was just the consequence.
I really hope everyone here keeps this in the mind the next time they have an urge to go yell at some random guy for dropping his cigarette butt on the sidewalk, or decide to confront someone over a ridiculous parking job. You’re starting a game where you don’t really understand the stakes.