Alton Sterling

[fsquid]

Anyone here thinks this will have any serious (i.e. worse than paid leave or job loss) consequences for the officer(s)  ?

It may and it probably should after watching the videos.  But it is hard to feel bad for a child molesting pervert with a rap sheet consisting of about 15 crimes with a gun in his pocket.

Looking at the documents, it appears that he was 21 and she was 16. If that's the case, calling him a child molester for that seems rather strong.

Child molesting pervert? Really you have the facts on that case... In 2000 when he was 20/21... Of course we should murder all prior criminals just because "Guns"

I guess to get the benefit of the doubt you have to be a billionaire raping a thirteen year old girl (for her first time ever, apparently) and then slapping her around when she starts crying.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,27209.0.html

ok

[AKIRA]

Regardless of Sterling's past crimes (or current) or the cops past complaints, it will comes down to whether or not he was reaching for (or got his hand on) the handgun or not, that will determine if the shooting was legal.  It will quite literally come to inches and seconds...

[coredumped]

Related: 3 officers dead, 10 shot following a protest in Dallas:
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Protests-in-Dallas-Over-Alton-Sterling-Death-385784431.html

This whole situation is a powder keg.

[fsquid]

4 Dead now.

[ronchamblin]

The police shootings in Dallas are not a surprise to me.  And I wonder why.  I wonder if the snipers are black or white.  Hmmmm ... well ... I suspect they are black.  If they are ... who do these black fellows think they are ... shooting cops.  My god (is god black or white or pink?) ... blacks have after all been treated fairly by cops throughout the last hundred years.  There has been no racial discrimination ... no unfair treatment ... no excessive force on the street or while in custody ... no extended imprisonment without trial or representation ... and certainly no shooting of black men on the street unless absolutely necessary.  Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.

[Ocklawaha]

...And certainly black men and women have always been paid fairly for a days work, always given 8 hours, always been able to use their earned benefits, insurance, vacation etc. If not then are they are fully justified in robbing the local book store and shooting the white owner? How someone's father or grandfather was treated is no grounds for violent behavior today.   

And God? Probably Jewish! 

[Gunnar]

I think Ron was not only referring to the past but also to the current situation.

While I do not argue that this is justification for a shooting spree, it does beg the question how long you expect people to put up with the very real threat of being executed by a cop for having a busted taillight or selling CDs, cigarettes etc with no (serious) repercussion to the perpetrator - even if someone happens to film this, never mind if no one is around with a camera in hand).

It is often said that most cops are good and law-abiding. Then why do the god cops not do more to stop the bad / unqualified ones ? That is, after all, their job.

Note: From what I have read, the Dallas PD was in fact putting in a lot of effort and making great strides in being a good police force and breaking the cycle of violence which makes them being targeted by the deranged sniper a  tragic irony in itself.

[Gunnar]

The Daily Show - The Fatal Shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP0awqth0XI

[ronchamblin]

Please see Post # 29 below, as this, written in haste before work, has been shortened and slightly polished.

[ronchamblin]

What a coincidence.  Apparently ... minutes after I posted the above, the shooting occurred in 'Baton Rouge.  We are on a roll ladies and gentlemen.  Onward christian soldiers.  Onward to more deaths.  Apparently our society has created conditions encouraging this kind of tragedy.  Onward.  More insanity please.  There must be more, as more alone, might force ultimate resolution ... and the eventual lowering of the death toll.  Otherwise, the occasional killings will simply continue to infinity ... resulting in a greater death toll for innocent individuals.

[ronchamblin]

The following is a shortening of, and slight revision of, the above post. My haste this morning before work didn't allow for polishing.  I don't want my MJ friends who just might read my stuff to endure excessively my rather poor writing.

Espresso this morning got my mind rushing.  So sorry for what follows, for .. again .. I know not what I think.

Was there, in the mind of the Dallas shooter, some justification for shooting the several assumed innocent cops, and the killing of five?  Could it be called payback?  Is it a warning of future cop killings if more cops perform street executions on black fellows?  Cops are, of course justified on occasion, in street shootings of individuals of any color.  If blame is to be, regarding the apparent increase in killings between the cops and the blacks, which faction (cops or blacks) over the decades perpetrated the first unwarranted abuse ... excessive force ... unnecessary street killings?  Who started this shit?

The politicians and others, who, after each mass killing, suggest that gun control must be increased and enforced ... are repeating the current popular habit of thinking ... but they are missing the real issue or cause, and therefore the real solutions.

Both white and black citizens, and cops, have been shooting black fellows over many decades.  Through the first half of the 20th century, the occasional black fellow was lynched by white citizens.  But, that's mostly history.  Is the preferred current method of executing (lynching) black fellows the police service pistol?     
 
Some politicians and media persons, mostly plutocrat lackeys ... inept fools in any case ... encourage stronger gun control, and suggest that we are simply witnessing a general societal madness ... or that the Dallas shooter was a terrorist, or a monster.  Is he really a monster?  Was he mad?  Or was his behavior shaped over time by failed attempts to adjust his idealism ... which might include expectations of a society possessed of reasonable decency and fairness ... to a society that has itself evolved to a kind of madness?  Did he shoot cops to communicate the extent of his suffering ... to insist or demand justice ...  to convey frustration at being unable to adjust his basic sanity to an increasingly unjust, insane, and dysfunctional society?   

The pressure encouraging conditions causing the death of innocent people, including cops, begins with evolved dysfunctional societal conditions ... conditions unfair, abusive, and even brutal to the poor of all colors ... especially for the poor in the black population. 

Gross inequality is a symptom of a society gone insane ... out of control as a consequence of a religion worshipping the goal of achieving wealth at all costs, a religion encouraging a media concerned only with spectacle, ... a religion encouraging TV evangelists, schools, colleges, and the corporate controlled capitalist marketing system to promote the frivolous consumption of material goods without limit, all at the expense of sane and measured consumption of the necessities of life.  These absurd material excesses are encouraged at the expense of decency, fairness, and restraint ... at the expense of education in the humanities, the arts, history, philosophy, and the sciences.

A quick fix for the fear, the hatred, the shootings, the institutional racism, and the gross inequalities cannot be accomplished in a month or a year,  as the mechanisms by which they were created have been shaped over decades.  Can one expect a kettle of water, made hot over many minutes, to cool in two?     

Gun control, while being a factor in solution, is a small one.  There are currently millions of semi-auto rifles in gun stores, at gun shows, in homes, and scattered everywhere in the wilds of America.  There are tens of millions throughout the world.  Even if there was an effort to collect these guns from U. S. owners via legislation, it would not only take several decades to collect, but all would never be.  Anyone desiring a semi-auto rifle will always be able to find one, although with varying difficulty depending on the scenario.  If legislation became aggressive regarding the elimination of the guns, there would emerge a black market similar to the drug market.  The availability factor, although a factor indeed, is not the most significant.  Therefore, for O'bama, or anyone else, to suggest with a tone of finality that we must do something about gun control, is wasting limited brain power on an insignificant issue or cause, at the expense of focusing on the fundamental causes of the shootings. 

The recent large truck, successfully used in France to kill over 80 innocent individuals, conveys that the semi-auto rifle is only "one' method to achieve mass killings.  Therefore, although measured gun control efforts should continue, the reality might be that it is much more important to resolve the societal conditions that actually create individuals who, in desperation, seek solutions and justice via mass killings.

The five Dallas cops killed were probably excellent officers (as certainly most officers are), performing bravely, without the characteristics allowing them to shoot blacks or anyone else without very good cause, and only as a last resort.  However, in this time of tension all police officers are at risk as they engage a culture of distrust, fear, and bitterness created long before they were born ... a culture continually infused with mechanisms and habits resulting in subtle and covert economic and discriminatory pressures against the black population in general, and the black male specifically. 

We are witnessing the consequences of the decades long presence of what some call institutional racism ... the continued subtle but powerful mechanisms that keep the majority of the black people (especially black men) "in their place" ... down economically, so that no matter the level of dysfunction to which the economy descends, the majority of black people will suffer the most, not only via a destroyed economy, but via the often abusive and for-profit justice system ... a system into which many black fellows become trapped "for life" as they attempt to survive by any means necessary in that destroyed economy ... an economy destroyed by the policies of a corporate and political system ultimately controlled by individuals exhibiting levels of greed and arrogance seldom seen in history.

As long as we continue to witness the unnecessary shootings of innocent black youths and men by officers who ... by a lack of training, by excessive fear, by a loss of control or restraint ... perform these street executions, we will probably continue to witness the shooting of innocent police officers who are simply trying to do their job as best they can.  Would it be proper to suggest that the police officers who unnecessarily shoot (execute) blacks on the street are in some measure, actually responsible for the (revenge) shooting deaths of other police officers in different cities and states?  For the president or anyone to simply say that the shootings of police officers is a heinous crime ... via an isolated nut ... suggesting that the shootings have little or no connection to any abusive behaviors in the past, is to offend reality.     

Our society, as a consequence of a destroyed and dysfunctional economy ... as a consequence of an increasingly dysfunctional political system, and an increasingly abusive justice system ...  is creating more individuals who are angry, desperate, destitute ... often bankrupt both materially and mentally ... and sometimes simply determined to end, by any means, including suicide, the suffering and the perceived injustices.       

As the economically privileged ... the arrogant wealthy held high in the corporate or political world ... reap the rewards of their positions while an increasing number of citizens lose hope, the society produces more men of desperation, men who approach a threshold, past which they believe they can do anything, and it doesn't matter.  They have nothing to lose.  Mr. James Baldwin ... "The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose."     

The desperate man contemplates relief from the societal oppression and mental suffering often through an action resulting in his death ... and thus, the end of his suffering.  He strikes out to retaliate, to punish, to achieve a form of justice not possible though mechanisms offered in the calm of society.   And he chooses the most effective and efficient method possible ... the use of the semi-auto rifle ... the assault rifle ... the large truck.  He plans his attack, and strikes out to kill as many citizens or cops as possible.

Gun control is bullshit, and has little to do with preventing the mass killings of citizens or cops.  The solution lies in forcing our government to maneuver for an economy that allows for the majority ...  including those living in poverty ... to have real jobs ... to have an opportunity to work for real wages.  The solution lies in real justice for all citizens.  The solution lies in reversing the trend to further inequality.  The solution lies in eliminating the for-profit corporate control of the prison system.  The solution lies in prosecuting a few dozen of the arrogant corporate and political individuals who've actually caused the economic catastrophe we currently endure.  The solution lies in working through fair trials for these criminals, and hopefully achieving the execution of several dozens of them ... such is the seriousness of their crimes.

Observe how many deaths have occurred, some by suicide, as a consequence of the for-profit only economic and trade policies forced by the plutocratic elites.  Observe the millions killed via the continual wars encouraged by these arrogant profiteers.  Look at the suicides of citizens seeking relief from suffering as a consequence of losing their jobs, their homes, and their families.  Surely the time is approaching wherein more concerned and lucid citizens can contemplate the appropriateness of prosecuting and executing several dozens of the greedy elites who, in their quest for power and more riches, continue to destroy the economy, and thus the lives of the middle and lower classes ... elites who encourage the perpetual wars to keep profits flowing to themselves and their lackeys.

Surely, the loss of these five well meaning and innocent police officers almost had to be, simply because the loss of the several innocent black men and youths did not have to be.  In a way, its called payback.  It is surely a tragedy for all related to the killed individuals.  The ultimate cause of these deaths lies not in the availability of guns, but in the shallow, greedy, and arrogant minds of those in positions of real power, those who have sacrificed decency, concern, and justice ... for profits at any cost.

[Gunnar]

And it goes on:

Unarmed South Florida man with hands up shot by police while calming autistic patient

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/unarmed-south-florida-man-hands-shot-police-video-article-1.2719331

http://www.thewrap.com/florida-police-shoot-charles-kinsey-unarmed-care-worker-looking-after-autistic-man/

Fortunately the victim survived,

It appears that the officer shot his victim accidentally but did he perform first aid ? No - first thing he did was handcuff his victim, flip him over on the concrete and then left him bleeding  until the ambulance arrived 20 minutes later.

Maybe it is time for tougher hiring criteria and  better training (including first aid) ?

[acme54321]

And it goes on:

Unarmed South Florida man with hands up shot by police while calming autistic patient

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/unarmed-south-florida-man-hands-shot-police-video-article-1.2719331

http://www.thewrap.com/florida-police-shoot-charles-kinsey-unarmed-care-worker-looking-after-autistic-man/

Fortunately the victim survived,

It appears that the officer shot his victim accidentally but did he perform first aid ? No - first thing he did was handcuff his victim, flip him over on the concrete and then left him bleeding  until the ambulance arrived 20 minutes later.

Maybe it is time for tougher hiring criteria and  better training (including first aid) ?

It says momentarily handcuffed in your article, not quite "handcuffed and left for dead".  It looks like an accident and this cop was probably freaking out that he just accidentally shot the guy and didn't know what to do.  This doesn't appear to be anything like some of the other recent shootings like the guy in the car in Minnesota.  Unfortunate, yes.

[Gunnar]

Correct, the first one does not say it but the second one does. And I agree that this is not the same situation as the previous shootings.

Police then rushed him, patted him down and put him in handcuffs, he said. "They flipped me over, and I'm face down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come. I'd say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding  — I mean bleeding — and I was like, 'Wow.'"

If the cop does not know why he shot him (so yes, accidentally), the least decent and human thing would be to administer first aid (patting him down is OK for safety reasons), not handcuff the *victim* and do nothing until the ambulance arrives.

-> Not saying he did this because he was racist but rather because he probably lacks the qualifications to work in law enforcement.

[acme54321]

but rather because he probably lacks the qualifications to work in law enforcement.

I wouldn't even go that far.  He just accidentally shot someone.  He shot a guy.  It was probably the first time he'd ever done that(I'm sure he hopes the last too) and it was an accident to boot.  I don't care how much training you get, shooting someone on accident would most likely result in panic mode.  At least for me it would.