If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
But this is helping cover for manslaughter (or whatever the term is). Feels like they are an accessory in some capacity.
Just highlighting my ignorance of legal charges.
You're right, I'm not a lawyer either, and I'm sure there are additional charges (accessory to the fact seems to make sense). I merely wanted to emphasize that I don't want (or need) new, special laws, but just enforcement of existing laws.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
While the police start talking about "gangs" attacking them ... Twitter is capturing events in real-time. We are talking about school kids on their way home.
Sadly this is not at all unexpected. The pot is definitely boiling over ...
Following Freddie Gray's funeral Monday afternoon, young protestors demanding accountability for the 25-year-old's black man's death clashed with police in riot gear in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Gray died on April 19 from a spinal cord injury, a week after he was rushed to the hospital while under police custody. Investigators are still working to determine whether police caused his death.
In protests that became increasingly confrontational Monday, police reportedly fired tear gas into a group of youths who threw bricks and bottles, injuring officers near the city's Mondawmin Mall, where downtown businesses had already shut down in anticipation of unrest.
Baltimore Sun reporter Erica L. Green posted video of what she described as an "all out war between kids and police."
So let me get this straight. The Baltimore authorities decided to shut down the mass transit system on the day of Freddie Gray's funeral. Thereby stranding hundreds if not thousands of school kids trying to get home. Of all days! And they wonder why we've ended up with rock throwing street battles between these kids and police in riot gear?
"Let's destroy our community!" again... Whatever, it's your city, go right ahead. Hell, their mayor agrees with me.
"We also gave those who want to destroy, space [for them] to do that as well." - Baltimore mayor
Rioting, looting, arson, and violence, all pretty much expected now.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Voice not being heard over an injustice? Completely demolish a 16 million dollar senior center in your own community.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
And THIS IS WHY the police have adopted the tactics they have when dealing with black rioters. Where are the REAL BULLETS? You sure can't trust the local DEMOCRATS to actually protect your property in Baltimore. Typical violent, loud, destructive response. Those "Black Leaders" and Democrat political hacks did nothing but incite the riots!
Because so many hold an ideology that attempts to co-opt the man in death but hated everything he stood for in life ... I think it would be very instructive to hear something he had to say other than "I Have A Dream" during Black History Month.
Originally Posted by Martin Luther King Jr.
It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.
But some of you guys thought The Wire was just a TV show huh?
The three-alarm fire raging several miles away from protests that have turned violent in Baltimore is not related to the unrest, fire department spokesman Samuel Johnson said.
Stupid idea. What do you and your family do when all the cops are gone? Live peacefully without risk of home invasions, robberies, etc? Let the rioters burn businesses down? How does THAT help the community?
And THIS IS WHY the police have adopted the tactics they have when dealing with black rioters. Where are the REAL BULLETS? You sure can't trust the local DEMOCRATS to actually protect your property in Baltimore. Typical violent, loud, destructive response. Those "Black Leaders" and Democrat political hacks did nothing but incite the riots!
Props to the few NoI guys who stepped up to try and help, though. That takes mad guts.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Do you trust your own ears or what she said later? C'mon man! You need to Listen and Believe.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Stupid idea. What do you and your family do when all the cops are gone? Live peacefully without risk of home invasions, robberies, etc? Let the rioters burn businesses down? How does THAT help the community?
I never said it was their community center, did I?
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Since new cadet signup has now dropped off by half, it's a valid question. Now that young men and women are deciding it's too dangerous to join law enforcement, what do we do?
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Since new cadet signup has now dropped off by half, it's a valid question. Now that young men and women are deciding it's too dangerous to join law enforcement, what do we do?
Perhaps try not antagonizing the people you're policing for a start.
I never said that you said it was their community center, did I?
(How is this a point of contention?)
Then what does your "other end of the spectrum" comment mean? Sure, it's their community, but I didn't say it was their center.
No one ever said anger was rational.
Coming back to this, righteous anger isn't what this is about, it's an excuse to behave badly; maim, destroy innocent people's property, and steal. Either they're stupid and unsure who is at fault for their perceived situation, or they just don't give a f@ck and are looking for any excuse to go on a mayhem holiday. I'm thinking it's the latter. Doesn't help that their own mayor said, "We also gave those who want to destroy, space [for them] to do that as well." It would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. The national guard or state police should have been there with rubber bullets, tear gas, and water canons. Now the idiot wants the governor to declare a state of emergency, that she helped perpetuate.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Perhaps try not antagonizing the people you're policing for a start.
Perhaps the people have thin skins and aren't very bright, and seem to be more violent? Ask the race baiting POS's that came from out of town to incite riots.
Perhaps try not antagonizing the people you're policing for a start.
Antagonizing? You mean enforcing the asinine laws that are on the books? Demanding unfair and egregious citation quotas? They can either stop doing the ticky-tack shit that gets them fined and arrested, or they can petition to have the laws and unfair quotas abolished. Again, I vote for the latter, personally. As things are going, there will be no police for urban centers. None. Remember the housing and population density in the last Dredd movie? That's where we're headed.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Perhaps the people have thin skins and aren't very bright, and seem to be more violent? Ask the race baiting POS's that came from out of town to incite riots.
It's not like the mayor just gave them a free pass to be destructive shitheads.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
Antagonizing? You mean enforcing the asinine laws that are on the books? Demanding unfair and egregious citation quotas? They can either stop doing the ticky-tack shit that gets them fined and arrested, or they can petition to have the laws and unfair quotas abolished. Again, I vote for the latter, personally. As things are going, there will be no police for urban centers. None. Remember the housing and population density in the last Dredd movie? That's where we're headed.
White privilege in a nutshell. Telling another group to hold themselves to a standard that most people would never measure up to. Telling them to exercise political power they don't have on a political issue that has no weight because no one else cares as it doesn't affect them. Might as well piss into the wind.
How about not trashing things or yelling? Are you saying blacks are unable to act in a civilized manner? White privilege is all BS anyway. Just another fictional liberal concept that the LOW IQ types will fall for.
White privilege in a nutshell. Telling another group to hold themselves to a standard that most people would never measure up to. Telling them to exercise political power they don't have on a political issue that has no weight because no one else cares as it doesn't affect them. Might as well piss into the wind.
Ignorant Social Justice in a nutshell. Did someone strip them of their right to vote? Can they not elect a better mayor or city council (or at least find one that isn't irrevocably stupid)? How do you know others don't measure up to those standards? Go ahead and ignore that I said it's a better solution to "petition to have the laws and unfair quotas abolished", propose referendums and nominate candidates that will exact legal reform. There's a system for all of this, and it doesn't involve looting and arson.
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
On a cold January afternoon, Jerriel Lyles parked his car in front of the P&J Carry Out on East Monument Street and darted inside to buy some food. After paying for a box of chicken, he noticed a big guy in jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a baseball cap.
“What’s up?” the man said to Lyles. Others, also dressed in jeans and hoodies, blocked the door to the street — making Lyles fear that he would be robbed. Instead, the man identified himself a police officer, frisked Lyles and demanded he sit on the greasy floor. Lyles objected.
“The officer hit me so hard it felt like his radio was in his hand,” Lyles testified about the 2009 incident, after suing Detective David Greene. “The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”
...
The Baltimore detective offered a different version of events in court, saying that Lyles’ injuries might have resulted from poking himself in the face. He also couldn’t say why officers stopped Lyles, who was not charged with any crime.
---
“These officers taint the whole department when they create these kinds of issues for the city,” said City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young. “I’m tired of the lawsuits that cost the city millions of dollars by some of these police officers.”
City policies help to shield the scope and impact of beatings from the public, even though Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake acknowledges that police brutality was one of the main issues broached by residents in nine recent forums across Baltimore.
The city’s settlement agreements contain a clause that prohibits injured residents from making any public statement — or talking to the news media — about the incidents. And when settlements are placed on the agenda at public meetings involving the mayor and other top officials, the cases are described using excerpts from police reports, with allegations of brutality routinely omitted. State law also helps to shield the details, by barring city officials from discussing internal disciplinary actions against the officers — even when a court has found them at fault.
---
Many of the lawsuits stemmed from the now-disbanded Violent Crimes Impact Section, which used plainclothes officers to target high-crime areas. Officers frequently wrote in charging documents that they feared for their safety and that residents received the injuries when resisting arrest.
Department officials said some officers were exonerated in internal force investigations, even though jurors and the city awarded thousands of dollars to battered residents in those incidents.
For years, leaders in Baltimore’s Police Department, the nation’s eighth-largest, didn’t track or monitor the number of lawsuits filed against each officer. As a result, city officials were unaware that some officers were the target of as many as five lawsuits.
---
Paramedics and police responded to the emergency call, but the white officer became hostile.
“What happened? Who shot you?” Green recalled the officer saying to her grandson, according to an 11-page letter in which she detailed the incident for her lawyer. Excerpts from the letter were included in her lawsuit. “You’re lying. You know you were shot inside that house. We ain’t going to help you because you are lying.”
“Mister, he isn’t lying,” replied Green, who had no criminal record. “He came from down that way running, calling me to call the ambulance.”
The officer, who is not identified in the lawsuit, wanted to go into the basement, but Green demanded a warrant. Her grandson kept two dogs downstairs and she feared they would attack. The officer unhooked the lock, but Green latched it.
He shoved Green against the wall. She hit the wooden floor.
“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up,” Green recalled the officer saying as he stood over her.…
After pulling Green to her feet, the officer told her she was under arrest.…
The cuffs came off, and Green didn’t face any charges.
---
But ridding the Baltimore agency of misconduct may not be easy. The agency’s strategic plan, released late last year, said discipline “has not always been a priority for the Baltimore Police Department,” and it has been common “for cases in this department to take as many as three years to resolve.” A more recent consultant’s report on the Internal Affairs Division said detectives lack training and often take shortcuts when investigating officers suspected of misconduct.
---
Rawlings-Blake acknowledged the importance of that relationship in an interview about the costly settlements. “It is a sacred covenant that each officer makes with members of the community, and when it’s broken, it’s devastating for not just the victim, but it’s devastating for our ability to move forward as a city.”
She said the relationship between the community and police has improved since Batts was hired, noting that residents are providing more tips to Crime Stoppers and making fewer complaints about discourteous officers.
But more than a dozen bystanders who were named in court records or who testified in court declined to talk to The Sun about the arrests and altercations that they witnessed — saying, like Lyles, that they feared retaliation from police
---
Although police officials declined to release individual personnel records, they did discuss the issue in broad terms, saying that from 2012 through July, the department received 3,048 misconduct complaints against officers. Of those, officials sustained 1,203 complaints — 39 percent — meaning investigators could prove the claims were true.
That led to 61 resignations and discipline for more than 850 officers, measures ranging from written reprimands to suspensions.
It's a shame they don't have a black mayor who supposedly understands their plight and can do something about those things, like firing a corrupt police commissioner, appoint a special prosecutor, or even just raise hell with the city council about the problems. . . WTF has she been doing, sitting back and enjoying her "white privilege"?
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
The "unheard" need to learn to communicate without being violent. Otherwise why try to deal with them in ways other than arrests and jail?
I'll simply say this ... and it applies to all for whom the shoe fits.
if you only give two sh*ts when a CVS goes up in flames then you are part and parcel of the problem.
And lest anyone think this is a partisan issue ....
Democrat Martin O’Malley weighed in Saturday on the national debate about policing that now includes the city where he was mayor, and where the police strategies he implemented provoked heated debate.
Speaking to an audience of party activists here, O’Malley called the police-custody death of Freddie Gray part of “a painful history in our country, a legacy that we continue to work on and work through and seek to overcome every day.”
“We have been seeing far too many tragic videos of police-involved deaths in our country,” said O’Malley, who became Maryland governor after serving as Baltimore mayor, and is considering a White House bid. “We have to make all our institutions more open and transparent.”
It was as a crime-busting mayor some 15 years ago that O’Malley first gained national attention. Although he is positioning himself as a progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton, O’Malley also touts a police crackdown during his time as mayor that led to a stark reduction in drug violence and homicides as one of his major achievements.
Yet some civic leaders and community activists in Baltimore portray O’Malley’s policing policies in troubling terms. The say the “zero-tolerance” approach mistreated young black men even as it helped dramatically reduce crime, fueling a deep mistrust of law enforcement that flared anew last week when Gray died after suffering a spinal injury while in police custody.
Police in Baltimore — like their counterparts elsewhere — have had strained relations with African Americans for generations. But community leaders say the relationship reached a nadir during O’Malley’s tenure, thanks to a policing strategy that resulted in tens of thousands of arrests for minor offenses such as loitering and littering.
Although prosecutors declined to bring many of the cases, activists contend that those who were arrested often could not get their records expunged, making it harder for them to get jobs.
“We still have men who are suffering from it today,” said Marvin “Doc” Cheathem, a past president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, which won a court settlement stemming from the city’s policing policies. “The guy is good at talking, but a lot of us know the real story of the harm he brought to our city.”
Bishop Douglas Miles, a community leader, said O’Malley’s department “set the tone for how the police department in Baltimore has reacted to poor and African American communities since then.”
“None of us are in favor of crime,” Miles said. “But we also recognized that you couldn’t correct the problem through wholesale arrests.”
For all the criticism, O’Malley twice won election as mayor, capturing nearly 67 percent of the Democratic primary vote in 2003 on his way to a second term. In an interview Saturday, he said he believes to this day that his administration did the right thing.
“They were individual arrests, and oftentimes of the same people again and again and again,” O’Malley said. “We achieved the biggest reduction in . . . crime of any city in America, and none of it was easy. All of it was hard. But there were very few people who want to return to those violent days of 1999.”
Crime fell during O’Malley’s mayoralty, with the number of homicides declining by 16 percent — part of a wider decline across much of the country. At the same time, the number of arrests in Baltimore soared, reaching 108,447 in 2005, or about one-sixth of the city’s population.
“What was positive was that there was zero-tolerance for criminals and drug dealers locking down neighborhoods and taking neighborhoods hostage,” said the Rev. Franklin Madison Reid, a Baltimore pastor. “Does that mean there was no down side? No. But the bottom line was that the city was in a lot stronger position as a city after he became mayor.”
Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”
“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.
But others wonder about a hidden cost.
A. Dwight Pettit, a Baltimore lawyer whose clients have won numerous settlements from police brutality complaints, said O’Malley’s “approach to policing when he was mayor was disregard for the Constitution.”
“His philosophy was, ‘Put them in jail and figure it out later,’ and that will solve the crime problem,” he said. “It created a confrontational mentality with the police.”
Over the past year, as he has criss-crossed the country, O’Malley has talked about alleged police misconduct in places such as Ferguson, Mo. and North Charleston, S.C. On Saturday, he called Gray’s death “another awful and horrific loss of life.”
“Whether it’s a police custodial death or a police-involved shooting,” O’Malley said, “we all have a responsibility to ask whether there’s something we can do to prevent such a loss of life from happening in the future.”
Earlier this month, at a civil rights event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, O’Malley said his crime-reduction efforts as mayor saved many lives. “There are a thousand fewer black men in Baltimore who died violent deaths over the last 15 years than otherwise would have died had we not come together.”
Sharpton — who said he invited O’Malley to speak at the convention because he is a potential presidential candidate -- still recalls O’Malley’s police strategies when he was mayor, which he criticized at the time for leading “to a lot of racial profiling and harassment of black men.”
“It breeds mistrust when you have everyone stopped two or three times,” Sharpton said. “It permeates throughout the community.”
Baltimore’s history is rife with moments when tensions between the police department and black residents flared. In 1942, for example, 2,000 African Americans from Baltimore marched in Annapolis to protest the fatal shooting of a black soldier by a white city police officer. Nearly 40 years later, the local NAACP branch demanded a federal investigation into police brutality in the city.
In 2005, with O’Malley in office, Cheathem recalled the local NAACP branch being “inundated with calls from African Americans and Hispanic men saying they were being arrested and no charges were being filed.”
A contingent of activists “met with the mayor and shared our anger — that these guys weren’t being charged but were coming out with arrest records,” Cheathem recalled. “We requested that this process be stopped, and he was not receptive to it at all. We left with the idea that we had no recourse but to sue.”
The NAACP joined in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU that was based on the arrest of a 19-year-old man with no prior criminal record who spent hours in jail for dropping a candy wrapper on the street while sitting on the steps of his aunt’s house. The suit named O’Malley and other Baltimore officials, including the police commissioner, and alleged that the Baltimore police had improperly arrested thousands of people “without probable cause and in violation of the U.S. Constitution.”
The complaint was settled four years later, with Baltimore agreeing to pay an $870,000 settlement. By then, O’Malley was governor. But the memory of his police strategy endured.
“We’re not saying the mayor had ill intentions,” said state Del. Jill Carter (D-Baltimore), a longtime O’Malley critic. “He probably had the best intentions. But when all the evidence hit that this was creating more problems, he should have been able to reassess it.”
Let's be clear here. This was Baltimore's version of NYC's "Stop and Frisk". Just even more aggressive as it was "Stop and Arrest". We are talking about mass incarceration of THOUSANDS of young black males over bulls*t. For years! Most of which resulted in no charges. But folks want to act all brand new when those young brothers rose up and started hurling rocks at 5-0. They want to convince themselves that this is only about Freddie Gray and not DECADES in the making. Quiet as a church mouth when the melanin-challenged set the city on fire after a freaking Superbowl or NCAA Championship win ... but outraged when the melanin-blessed burn down a CVS. "Rowdy football fans" on the one hand .... "criminals and thugs" on the other. The blatant hypocrisy is just staggering!
Police in Baltimore — like their counterparts elsewhere — have had strained relations with African Americans for generations. But community leaders say the relationship reached a nadir during O’Malley’s tenure, thanks to a policing strategy that resulted in tens of thousands of arrests for minor offenses such as loitering and littering.
Although prosecutors declined to bring many of the cases, activists contend that those who were arrested often could not get their records expunged, making it harder for them to get jobs.
Oh. Like I said, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that we (as a society) created the very problems we complain about now.
It's a shame they don't have a black mayor who supposedly understands their plight and can do something about those things, like firing a corrupt police commissioner, appoint a special prosecutor, or even just raise hell with the city council about the problems. . . WTF has she been doing, sitting back and enjoying her "white privilege"?
She IS the political process, or does the damned mayor not have the power to effect change in her city?
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr
It would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. The national guard or state police should have been there with rubber bullets, tear gas, and water canons. Now the idiot wants the governor to declare a state of emergency, that she helped perpetuate.
Top