Rank and file New York Police Department members and their spokespeople are blaming peaceful protesters for inciting the brutal murder of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.
Okay. There’s a discernible logic to that. I suppose had there been no public outrage over the most recent spate of police killings of unarmed black men, perhaps 28-year-old shooter Ismaaiyl Brinsley would have turned his anger and insanity toward another target. Had there been no protests against police violence to focus his rage, maybe instead of Officers Ramos and Liu, Brinsley would have shot up a synagogue or a mosque or a school? Or maybe his own family? He had already shot his ex-girlfriend earlier the same day, and his mother reportedly told police that she feared her own son, so this guy was clearly a shooting spree waiting to happen. Yeah, if not for the protests, perhaps Officers Ramos and Liu would still be alive today. It’s at least possible.
But you know what else might have prevented this tragedy? Fewer police killings of unarmed black men.
Had Officer Darren Wilson not shot dead Michael Brown, had NYPD officers not choked to death Eric Garner, and had our justice system not failed to vigorously prosecute the officers for, at the very least, negligence, these protests might have never been sparked. So if, as the NYPD insists, protests against police violence are responsible for inciting the murders of Officers Ramos and Liu, then the police violence that sparked the protests ultimately deserves some blame as well.
I understand if some find this line of reasoning offensive, but it is the logical conclusion of the same line of reasoning that prompted hundreds of NYPD officers to display their contempt for civil authority today by turning their backs on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in anger over his refusal to condemn protests against police violence.
Violence breeds violence. That is human nature. And that is why in the wake of this tragedy it is incumbent upon police officers nationwide to show more discipline, professionalism, and restraint, not less.
“Rank and file New York Police Department members and their spokespeople are blaming peaceful protesters for inciting the brutal murder of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.”
They’re also making conspicuous displays of disrespect against Mayor DeBlasio for polices they claim coddles protesters. In other words, these police bullies want a license to violate citizens’ constitutional rights. Or maybe all this has to do with the tense and acrimonious labor negotiations between the mayor and the cop unions now underway in New York City. With that clarified, my question, is where are the righty trolls and their hyperventilating rhetoric about “union thugs” and overpaid public employees?
Meanwhile, I saw on CNBC today that some New Jersey cops, with overtime, make over $300,000 a year.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102296021
The trolls may have a point … of course, nobody is more overpaid than CEOs who get paid millions for losing money for their shareholders, but that’s another story.
“But you know what else might have prevented this tragedy? Fewer police killings of unarmed black men.”
Don’t overlook fewer police killings of unarmed black children, too.
“I understand if some find this line of reasoning offensive, but it is the logical conclusion of the same line of reasoning that prompted hundreds of NYPD officers to display their contempt for civil authority today by turning their backs on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in anger over his refusal to condemn protests against police violence.”
Actually this probably has more to do with the tense and acrimonious labor negotiations between the mayor and cop unions. Everything will be happy again after they get their raise.
#BlueLivesMatter
Like Representative Grimm we all know that all the officers in the NYPD are fine upstanding citizens an officers. They would never do anything corrupt. That the professional leadership of the department would insist on criminal charges when appropriate. Rather like in Seattle, Washington. What do I hear laughter? What sometimes the police are a little less than angels? That something happened recently where a couple of cops were shot while having coffee somewhere. You are wondering whether I think that there are unicorns?
I think there is plenty of evidence that some in our law enforcement community maybe corrupt and personally I’m more concerned about law enforcement here in Washington state. Sure there are some incorruptible officers out there, often though they aren’t particularly loved by the rank and file. There is and will be corruption and police officers while protected should not and must not be given a golden ticket. There are times when they must face a judge or be judged by a jury of their piers. And their work piers should be making a lot more noise or not be so ignored by the media under the currant circumstances in this country.
Still folks it’s New York city. The big apple. Ain’t it cool? Once upon a time a New York Mayor would have tossed cops out on their asses for turning their backs in disrespect on him or the public. More so than if they were in the pay of madams, gamblers, land lords, politicians or murdered someone.
Funny – why should we take any intelligent time and waste it on whether violence breeds violence. We obviously don’t take anytime to think on whether hate breeds violence. We seem to let the Westboro Baptist Church do what they want without getting anyone’s panties in a bunch. Oh I forget the actions of the WBC are deemed offensive because of the lack of respect to a dead soldier, but the heck with their message it is freedom of speech.
Stupidity breads Stupidity.
@6 Of course there are unicorns! Who would GOPers use for a scapegoat without unicorns?
@6 Ah yes, a jury of piers; let me say as a lawyer, if only I could get piers on my juries … if you think talking to a pier is like talking to a stump you should try talking to jurors sometime … why do you suppose lawyers settle so many cases out in the hallway?
[Deleted]
Your headline of the day:
Protester who advocates peace charged with setting fire at Berkeley QT
One of the most frequently quoted and photographed Ferguson protesters was charged Saturday with setting fire to a Berkeley convenience store last week.
St. Louis County police arrested Joshua Williams, 19, of St. Louis, on Friday after several local media outlets and store surveillance captured images of him trying to set a pile of wood on fire outside the QuikTrip on North Hanley Road early Wednesday.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/l.....dbbcb.html
The perp was the subject of a fawning MSNBC profile in September. Now he’s an admitted first-degree arsonist.
I guess hearing about that violent Berkeley police officer killing another young black man was too much for him.
Clearly police violence was at fault. Why, that Berkeley officer should have demonstrated the discipline, professionalism, and restraint to wait until the adversary pulled the trigger (because that pistol might not have been loaded, after all), rather than killing that poor young man for the mere faux pas of pulling a pistol and pointing it at him.
[Deleted]
@11 “Why, that Berkeley officer should have demonstrated the discipline, professionalism, and restraint to wait until the adversary pulled the trigger (because that pistol might not have been loaded, after all), rather than killing that poor young man for the mere faux pas of pulling a pistol and pointing it at him.”
If it were me, I’d shoot a guy who pulled a pistol and pointed it at me. But what does that have to do with Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, or Tamir Rice? Or police brutality? Or police using excessive or unnecessary force? Or racial profiling and police harassment? You know, the police abuses that white and black citizens alike all over the country are protesting?
As I said before, as an HA troll, poor Doctor Bob is stuck with the unenviable task of defending the indefensible. But this doesn’t mean he deserves sympathy. He chose to be a rightwinger and a troll. He’s responsible for his poor choices.
Once again, cheapshot “I support torture” bob cares more about the injustice of property damage than the injustice of the killing of black men. Why is that?
So protestors chanting “what do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!” is not inciting violence against cops?
@15 Bob would consider the killing of black men more of injustice if they were still property.
@16 Sounds like maybe James O’Keefe and his crew were there.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-reid-.....cops-chant
It’s hard to understand conservative cop-worship, because according to conservative ideology, cops are bad guys, i.e they’re unproductive public employees whose unions suck the air out of the economy by imposing their inflated salary demands on productive taxpayers.
@16 no more than chanting and holding signs saying “God hates Fags” and “Fags doom Nation”. Its called freedom of speech.
And let’s not forget about the every once in a while Pastor that calls for the stoning of gays, or death of gays.
You are a hypocrite. And a bigot.
@20 Nah, he’s just a woodpecker looking for a post to peck on.
@16 et all – Let’s not forget that the police show up in force to Protect the “God hates Fags” sign holders. Those “God Hates Fags” crowd are special people.
Um, Roger, you defame woodpeckers and posts.
Bob is a steaming pile of shit lying in wait for an unsuspecting shoe.
Emphasis on the lying part, of course.
@ 17
Goldy would consider the killing of black men more of an injustice if it weren’t part of an average South Side Chicago weekend.
Harder to spin that into a paycheck, although if he figures out a way, it would certainly be a recurring revenue stream.
25. That is a stupid argument. You are arguing that cops get a blanket pass everywhere in the country to shoot black males that scare them since there is black on black crime in Chicago.
This article, “A Weimar-y Vibe”, is a must read:
Listening to these cries from the cops—of blood on people’s hands, of getting on a war footing—it’s hard not to think that a Dolchstosslegende isn’t being born. Throw in the witches brew of race and state violence that kicked it off, the nearly universal obeisance to the feelings and sensitivities of the most powerful and militarized sectors of the state, and the helplessness and haplessness of the city’s liberal voices, and you begin to get a sense of the Weimar-y vibe (and not the good kind) out there.
But whatever historical precedent comes to mind, one thing is clear.
The entire New York City establishment—not just De Blasio, but political, cultural, and economic elites—is terrified (or in support) of the cops. With the exception of this fairly cautious statement from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, himself a former police captain, not one of these figures has spoken out against the Freikorps-ish rhetoric emanating from the NYPD. It’s not that these men and women are spineless or gutless in a psychological or personal sense. It’s worse: They’re politically frightened, which is far more dangerous. Because they have no sense of an alternative base or source of power. After decades of being whipsawed by capital—you could trace this rot all the way back to 1975, if not even further—they’re simply not prepared to take on the police. Even if they wanted to.
http://coreyrobin.com/2014/12/22/a-weimar-y-vibe/
@ 26
No, Better, that’s not what I’m arguing at all. You misperceive but you do not disappoint.
I’m arguing that this issue of police use of force against minorities has become political
Higher-educated whites and those living in areas with larger black populations are more apt to doubt that minorities are treated equally in the justice system. But these factors are far outweighed by political considerations. When holding these and other demographics constant, conservatives and Republicans continue to be far more likely to say whites and blacks receive equal treatment in the justice system.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
and that sides have been taken, predictably, over this issue. As such, Goldy can sell, perhaps literally, his side’s argument.
My point @25 is that all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room by the police killing of Michael Brown and by the death during arrest of Eric Garner, and subsequently by the assassination of two NYPD officers. Meanwhile, in the 4 1/2 months since Brown’s death, how many deaths have there been, nationwide, of inner city minority youth, at the hands of other inner city minority youth? How many of those that died were totally innocent, and not in the process of being arrested for committing a crime or having committed a violent crime only minutes before the altercation with police in which they died?
After you estimate this, ask yourself: how many of those inner city minority deaths at the hands of other minority youth has Goldy taken to this blog, or anywhere else, to argue?
It’s politically advantageous to take a side in a contentious, popular debate.
It’s not as easy when far more frequent deaths occur with the same skin color on each side of the weapon.
Google “Chicago Tribune weekend shooting”. Virtually every week there’s an article headlined “X killed, Y wounded in weekend shootings” or something very similar to those words. All of that death. Many of those deaths are wholly innocent children, Better. If you lived in South Side Chicago, could be your child.
What do you hear from Goldy on that?
There’s probably not much of a paycheck in it. The Trib article titles are so similar, week after week, that they might as well be created by an outsourced aggregation service. In a few years, that will probably be the case.
When you read about this on HA, Better, you’re reading a political perspective from a political partisan. Don’t delude yourself into thinking otherwise.
“HorsesAss.org: The Straight Poop on WA Politics & the Press
An (almost) daily weblog on state politics and the press.”
@27 Maybe DeBlasio should fire them all and start over with new hires, like Reagan did with the air traffic controllers.
@28 “this issue of police use of force against minorities has become political”
REALLY???
@28 So your position is what? That police killings of unarmed civilians should continue on an apolitical basis?
I just spent a few minutes crawling through the archives to see if Doctor Blowhard was outraged by protesters back in April when the protesters were anti-government fanatics aiming assault rifles at federal police officers at the Bundy Ranch. Nope. He didn’t say a word about THOSE protesters. He was pontificating about housing prices back then.
Of course police forces support the establishment. The Metropolitan London Police were established after a series of riots threatened the class and social order. The concept was passed by parliament and got the Royal nod.
What came out was a professional and effective force to be admired, even today. It’s not perfect and has had its flaws, but compared to he NYPD it’s always flown like an eagle while the NYPD often has much in common with a turkey buzzard. If for no other reason that a basic tenant of the Bobbies is accountability. They can be held accountable for their actions, they can be charged and they can and have gone to prison or at least been fired. Even today most officers don’t carry a firearm though more do than in the past.
Some things about police are political such as the appropriate amount of force. Though when police forces that are civilian act more and more like the gendarme it’s time to take a had look and have a real political discussion. I don’t think we Americans want a gendarme, but if we do we should develop thicker skins as events of the recent past will become more common, whether or not the race of the officer and victim are different.
Goldy is right about the kind of outrage there would be if police were to kill an owners slave. The state would have to pay the owner for the value of the slave, and it did happen and could be pricey, and could upset ban counters.
All one can do is push back about the Republicans noise over public servants pay. The average pay for police officers is good. Though most work in urban areas some where you need to have a good pay just to survive like New York. I personally believe one answer to this cult of the CEO is just pointing out the pay of the President of the United States and just saying why can’t you do your job at his pay? What are you doing that is deserving of the high pay you are receiving. Yet few if any will go along with boosting the next Presidents pay. (Sorry President Obama you can’t get a pay raise, and congress caught onto the whole expense thing after that fellow George got 6 white horses for his couch.) The surprising thing is using the Republican’s theory we can get anyone to run for the office, and don’t have to trick people into running. One would have to trick a good hobbit like Bilbo or Frodo into being President though either would likely be good if not great President. Of course when it comes to police this is not something the President has almost no control over and limited influence, yet we the public should have influence, and we can push against the elite and to insure policing is for all members of the public! ALL! The tourist from Bombay. The student in the University district. The woman with an accent who works cleaning rooms at a hotel and all her children. As well as the folks who are on the board in their brooks brother suits going to the annual meeting through the streets of the Emerald city.
@30 and @31 – thanks for the comments, my thoughts exactly, except you said it a lot better than me.
what isn’t political today…. the existence of a ham sandwich makes a good partisan debate today.
@32 where is his outrage over the WBC? Nope, just good clean free speech there. Oh he might not like them for disrespecting the soldiers, but other than that, good clean fun free speech.
It’s the professional bigots like ‘Bob’ the sloppy solipsist here who are hectoring the murders of black men and boys as a political issue. Hell, this “political issue” has been with us for over 300 years. This “political issue” resulted in the “political solution” of murderous ‘slave patrols’ and the “political compromise” of the guarantee of a ‘well regulated militia’ as a sop to slaveholding states to get the to agree to a constitution for the fledgling Republic.
I once thought the asshole ‘Bob’ the sloppy solipsist was reasonable and decent underneath…somewhere. I sure got that one wrong, didn’t I.
He wants to call it out as politics, like he is above it all, then on another thread he posts this
Sounds like a political statement to me.
@20 I don’t recall defending any of those pieces of shit you referred to. Are you actually claiming I support the Westboro Baptist Church? Wow, sounds like you are fully aware of how bad your argument is when you are at that level.
@39 let me get this straight, your argument is that violent assholes chanting horrible things somehow counters the position that maybe the cops shouldn’t use quite so much force, and not so often against unarmed minorities?
I’m not even arguing numbers. 99% of protesters could be chanting those horrible things (they’re not) and it still wouldn’t change the basic position that police employ the improper escalation of force too often.
@40 no I’m claiming that chanting that is instigating violence and I’m claiming no else. No reading between lines no nothing else whatsoever.