I highly recommend people watch video from the trial--specifically the officer testimonies. It's absurd this lawsuit was even fit for trial.
Afroman found not liable in defamation case
321–330 of 798 posts
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They also falsely stated that the officers are “white supremacists,” > Statistically that's a pretty sensible assumption. Interesting, is there a source or some data you’re aware of that suggests that it’s a statistically safe assumption?
Do you personally know any police officers? I do and, as a group, I've found them to be more racist than the general population. I don't know what the working definition of "white supremacists" is in this context but it doesn't make me blink.
This phenomenon happens with more than just police too—I've seen it happen with medical
professionals, firefighters and EMTs as well.
0. Be a white person who has little to no interaction with non-white people in your day to day life.
1. Get a job where you interact with some of the dumbest people in the general public on the regular.
2. Some of those dumb people will invariably be, say, black. And you'll interact with way more black folks than the none you're use to interacting with.
3. Because you have no other association with that group your brain pattern matches and draws the connection.
4. Boom racism.
I find it hard to judge these people too hard because I haven't been "tested" in the same way. Like I want to believe I wouldn't fall down this pipeline but everyone says that.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like observing that we could probably solve the issue of people saying mean things on the internet by requiring ID to access it. You have to consider any expected negative consequences as well as if you'd be violating any rights.
We’ve seen other highly developed countries operate just fine without arming their citizenry to the teeth.
> We’ve seen other highly developed countries operate just fine without arming their citizenry to the teeth.
Good for them. As an American, I'm quite happy with our Second Amendment rights, I'm not looking to roll that back in the slightest. And if anything, with the recent rise of the fascist authoritarian regime that we've seen, I'd think that maybe a whole lot of "anti gun" people here would be well on their way to becoming "formerly anti gun" people.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such a common argument that’s basically a fallacy. Many of those dangerous jobs are dangerous because of human error. So it’s funny that you think 60% of deaths being on purpose is normal, what other job in the dangerous top 10 has 60% intentional deaths? Like seriously?
> So it’s funny They didn’t say it’s funny. If you have something meaningful to say, then say it. Don’t twist someone else’s words instead. > human error Choosing to train police to act with an “warrior mindset” instead of training for de-escalation seems like it could be classified as human error, too.
I think intentionally and willingly doing something whilst informed of the consequence doesn't count as human error. At least not in this context.
Though it would make more sense, since these humans are likely largely erroneous.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're implying "An establishment calling itself a 'newspaper of record' can be expected to have high standards, such as correctly reporting dates, and I'll hold them to that" If you can spot a typo in the first few seconds of reading a piece, so can the editor and sub-editor before it's published.
Myself and most other programmers I know have at least once (more like 100 times) had the experience where you can't figure something out in some code you've been staring at for an hour, then another person comes along and immediately sees an obvious glaring error that you missed. I can only imagine the same thing happens in newsrooms with text, especially when it is visibly very similar, like "2002" and "2022."
Youd expect them to have a checklist too though.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've had a gun pulled on me twice for traffic stops when I went to grab something. I'm white. Something I learned from a friend is to ask permission for every movement or at the very least narrate and move slowly. "I'm going to reach in the glovebox for my registration. Is that ok?" I think it's the only way to protect yourself from their hyper-nervousness. Edit: friend and I are also white.
A black friend of mine did exactly this, asked for a permission to get a pen from his pocket. The cop laughed “sure” and the moment he put his hand inside his pocket they jumped him and arrested him.
With body cameras this is a lawsuit.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
> falsely claimed that the cops “stole my money” That appears to have happened; they're claiming it was a miscount. > were “criminals disguised as law enforcement,” Seems fair. (And opinion, which can't be defamation.) > They also falsely stated that the officers are “white supremacists,” Statistically that's a pretty sensible assumption. I'd note that the jury found Afroman not liable on all these.
> They also falsely stated that the officers are “white supremacists,” > Statistically that's a pretty sensible assumption. Interesting, is there a source or some data you’re aware of that suggests that it’s a statistically safe assumption?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the claim here is "majority of cops are white supremacists". Thats not the claim. The claim is that it is sensible to assume a cop is.
A very different bar. A minority of cops can be white supremacists and because of the power they wield it's still sensible to treat them like every interaction is with a a white supremacist. As an example, a cop can legally kill you in many cases (or deny you freedom or seize your assets). If you had, say, a 20% chance of encountering a cop who was a white supremacist it would be sensible to treat every interaction as if that were the case.
Consider how unevenly weighted the outcomes depending on whether you assume a cop is racist when factoring how sensible it is to assume they are.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a country with a lot of guns. Police do regularly get shot at when raiding. Call me naive, but I think this could be solved by stricter gun laws. Yes, bad guys might have guns, but that's the case everywhere around the world. But being afraid that everybody could have a gun and use it against you while doing your work must clearly change something in your behaviour as a police officer... Why not calm down the…
You can hardly make stricter gun laws; we have a right to them in this country. It's hard to limit the guns without infringing on the right of the people.
Maybe that right is not worth the trade off
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#329I have a potentially silly question, and obviously naive - but why so many drawn guns? Fun music videos aside, what was the background here? Were they coming in on a Massive gang fortress? Or are all the stereotypes of American police forces true and they just come guns a-blazing all the time? I mean, that wasn't even police officers with hand guns, they have army-like guys with massive automatic rifles, and they see…
#1 - He's Black. #2 - That's how the police in America operate now; even for the most common interactions w/the public. I know this may sound like I'm being an asshole, but I'm not.
If you were to take a positive intent approach:
- the warrant was for distribution of narcotics and kiddnapping.
If I were to guess what a list of most dangerous warrants to execute, those two would be up there.
If you note in the video, he jokingly plays around the drugs part. I am not sure where the kidnapping part comes from, but Afroman is not necessarily a household name amongst middle-aged white police officers, so I imagine they just saw "drugs and kidnapping" and went for it.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Qualified immunity just protects the police, and other government officials personally. If there is grounds for a lawsuit then he could still sue the government that employs the police department. I think in general, if it is a legit warrant, it is very difficult to win a lawsuit for damage. Though with that video, and how high profile this has been, he might be able to win something. though IANAL, and I'm just going…
The government has sovereign immunity which is why you usually have to sue the people involved rather than the government directly.
Police departments are sued constantly. Most major police departments even have dedicated divisions set up just to assess and respond to lawsuits. Oftentimes by just knocking on the door and handing over a check.