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“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

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Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#341

Post by spiritplumber »

Spooky23 wrote: post #287

End of the day, swat teams exist because the guys on the department like cool toys, and the Feds pay for them via grant programs. My local police department has a "command center" rv and telescopic lookout post that the Feds paid like $3M for. The machine guns are usually bought with seized drug money, and tactical training paid for try the Feds. Most cities don't need paramilitary squads, so they end up using them f…

This is actually why I advocate fire/police crosstraining and cooperation like San Mateo County does.

Everyone is happy to see a fireman or a EMT. Having police answer routine fireman calls, and "wear that hat" during the call, would go a long way.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#343

Post by spiritplumber »

merraksh wrote: post #234

But the Occupiers, who tended to be young, white, and middle-to upper-middle-class, knew social media like few other demographics. They knew how to live-stream video directly to the Internet. They all had smart phones, so police couldn’t suppress incriminating video by confiscating one or two or ten phones—someone was bound to have video of not only the original incident but also of police trying to confiscate phones…

That's great, but terabytes of video from multiple camera angles don't help much if all the do is cause an internal investigation that never finds anything wrong.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#344

Post by arh68 »

tokenadult wrote: post #36
alexvr wrote: post #17

In order to stay safe from the government, 1. Don't buy sparkling water if you're a college student 2. Don't bet with friends because an arbitrary threshold of about $2k warrants your execution 3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage 4. It's probably a bad idea to bear arms these days, because saying "Officer, I have a weapon in the trunk of my car"…

3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage Point 3 is patently false. All of my Facebook friends, and I, regularly say that the United States government abuses its power, some from the right, some from the left, and many from a general freedom-loving perspective, and we all go on posting as we please. All of these statements are exaggerations. Many of t…

Point 1 is also patently false: I have bought sparkling water and I'm not a felon! Obviously the GP is not making logical declarations. To stay SAFEST, one must avoid sparkling water, threatening jokes, and any statements the DOJ would disapprove of. Your friends on Facebook do not invalidate that point.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#345

Post by matwood »

tsotha wrote: post #308
jlgreco wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this actually the case? Of course he didn't know the reason this cop was his "friend" and the cop didn't introduce himself as a cop, but after a few months you would think that his job would have come up once or twice. Did the cop lie when asked about it? Regardless, it is more than enough reason to never be "friends" with a cop.

The article implies the cop was undercover. Look at it this way: If you knew your buddy was a cop, would you break the law in front of him and put him in an awkward position? I'm sure the cop's job did come up. And I'm sure he lied. Who would bother to check?

I live in a town where they decided to crack down on the minor home poker games. One of the players in town as a cop. Everyone at the games knew him to be a cop because he liked bragging about his drug busts. He played poker with the same group of people for months. One day he showed up to the game with SWAT and news cameras and led everyone out on the 11pm news. So yeah, when it's something as minor as $20 home poker games people don't think that's something cops really care about.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#346

Post by mathattack »

cheald wrote: post #328
mathattack wrote: post #182

"In January 2011, the Culosi family accepted a $2 million settlement offer from Fairfax County. That same year, Virginia’s government spent $20 million promoting the state lottery." Lotteries like this are a tax on people bad at math. How is this morally superior to an office pool? Though I do think viewing this as a "hit" enters the realm of tinfoil hats,

There's no question of "morality" here. The government just wants the monopoly on gambling.

Isn't a government monopoly on anything a morality question? (Of freedom?) Or just economic efficiency?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#347

Post by philbarr »

speeder wrote: post #186
kevinmchugh wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a somewhat ugly and self-aggrandizing view. It's easy to let people you don't know and will never meet become sub-human, but it's dangerous and harmful. The relevant xkcd is of course, http://xkcd.com/610/ . I don't presume to know why most people are not particularly vocal on these matters, but it's certainly not because they lack critical thought.

Here in Brazil not only people are usually like that (the "shocking" protests here, were still a minority... 1 million people in total, spread over the entire country, when the country has 200 million people... Compare that with european countries with a history of population fueled government changes, that regularly do protests with more than 1 million people and have less population), but people in Brazil are PROUD…

Obligatory Douglas Adams quote, from Thanks For All The Fish:

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

"What?"

"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"

"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."

Ford shrugged again.

"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#348

Post by Avenger42 »

rjbwork wrote: post #291
nahname wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even try to blame this on the youth. They are still to apathetic to even count. We only have ourselves to blame for this. It is our mess to fix.

Thanks for that! We're just now trying to establish lives for ourselves in one of the worst economic climates since the great depression. That's hard enough without having the responsibility of fixing politics and government foisted upon us as well...

I think he was actually saying that this responsibility should be on the 30-, 40- and 50-year-olds, who are already in the working world and are old enough to have seen (and voted for/against) several of the people in all levels of government who have made the choices that brought us here.

For now, focus on your life, and getting yourself in a position to contribute to the movement in the future.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#349

Post by darkarmani »

saraid216 wrote: post #319
darkarmani wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's rhetoric like this that makes cops feel obligated to protect each other from other citizens. Wait, what? If citizen's lied for each other in investigations, they'd be prosecuted.

> Wait, what? If citizen's lied for each other in investigations, they'd be prosecuted. What, the Internal Affairs division just doesn't exist? Does it not have enough power? Is that what's really being argued here? Or is this just feel-good we're-the-good-guys they're-the-bad-guys rhetoric intended to undermine what capabilities they have, cause them to feel threatened and insecure in the midst of the citizenry they…

> cause them to feel threatened and insecure in the midst of the citizenry they're supposed to be protecting, and motivating them to develop a similar and responsive antagonistic attitude

Are we still railing against rhetoric? The argument isn't they started it, it's "they have been granted tremendous power, so they need to accept accountability."

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#350

Post by wdewind »

etherael wrote: post #324
wdewind wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound much worse than it actually is. The court ruled "a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." If the opposite were held true any person who was ever the victim of a crime could sue the government agency with jurisdiction for damages. Warren does not hold that the police have no duty to protect yo…

You mean say a cop is hiding behind a steel door while you go toe to toe with a knife wielding crazy? http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/to_serve_but_not... Nah, never happens.

My point is that Warren does not address that situation, you'd need other case law to discuss it.
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