Patterico's Pontifications

6/1/2020

Charlamagne tha God And Rush Limbaugh Have A Chat

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:18 pm



[guest post by Dana]

In the midst of everything else going on, I see that Rush Limbaugh and Charlamagne tha God hung out yesterday, and their conversation aired this morning. As you recall, last week, Joe Biden “blamed” Charlamagne for setting him up when he made his infamous “…then you ain’t black” gaffe. Anyway, the two radio hosts agreed about George Floyd’s murder, and that the three other officers should face charges:

During the conversation, Limbaugh, who has been outspoken about the death of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers, did not hesitate to speak forcefully about the killing of the unarmed black man. “The George Floyd story is being lost,” Limbaugh said.

“It sickens me what happened to him. Legitimate, national outrage about a policeman’s criminal brutality has been hijacked – and I don’t want to forget about George Floyd. What happened to George Floyd sickened me and I wanted to reach out to you and tell you all this.” Limbaugh said. “I want to make sure you have no doubt and I’m not the only American who feels this way – the senselessness of it. You know, we’re only given one life… but George Floyd had his taken away from him. He didn’t lose it. He had it taken away from him.”

“There shouldn’t be legalized murder… George Floyd, by everything I’ve been able to tell, was a good guy,” Limbaugh said. “I think that cop should be charged with first-degree murder.”

Here’s an excerpt of where they differed in opinion, and it was a compelling exchange:

In response to a question from Charlamagne Da God about why Limbaugh felt so passionate about this particular incident, Limbaugh said “I’m not tolerant with any of them but I’m fed up with it, Charlamagne.” He continued: “To me, and I know you’re going to disagree with me on this, this is not America.” After Charlagmane pushed back saying it’s “definitely America,” Limbaugh replied, “[b]ut it’s not what it could be.”

“But for who though, Rush?” Charlagmane responded. “I think it’s easy for you to say because you’re a white male and that comes with a different level of privilege.” He continued: “And I do think America does work, but it works for the people who it’s designed to work for. Doesn’t work for everybody else the way it works for you.”

The full transcript is here.

You can listen to the conversation here.

–Dana

118 Responses to “Charlamagne tha God And Rush Limbaugh Have A Chat”

  1. I suggest listening to the whole conversation before commenting. It’s clarifying to hear the views of both participants in very open give-and-take discussion. The end of the discussion brings the most conflict when Limbaugh staunchly refuses to acknowledge that blacks in America are treated differently than whites.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. Sorry, Dana. I just can’t get interested in anybody who calls himself “Charlamagne tha God”.

    norcal (a5428a)

  3. Read the transcript and found it pretty interesting. I guess the conversation that the Breakfast Club crew had with Rush is a microcosm of the racial divide we have in the country today. It seems though they had a fairly heated argument they still managed to stay mostly cordial to each other, but it breaks down along the lines of the whole argument of what is “white supremacy” and what is do be done about it. Because of time constraints and other issues they never quite addressed these questions head-on, partly because it seems that Rush refuses to believe in the concept and partly because it really didn’t appear that the Breakfast Club has given enough thought to defining exactly what the concept means, beyond the trite “do you get followed when you go to a store or do you get pulled over when driving in certain neighborhoods” questions.

    I would love to hear a black intellectual who has really given the matter some thought explain exactly what white supremacy is — i.e. how is it manifested in everyday life — and what should be done about it. My fear of course is that the answer for what needs to be done to eradicate it will boil down to the usual noxious stew of reparations, free health care, free college, high taxes on the wealthy, the Green New Deal, etc., and it will be indistinguishable from the agenda of Democrat Socialists. But I would certainly give them the courtesy of hearing them out and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  4. Its beyond those two blow hards now. Protestors can out last curfews business community cannot!

    asset (281ff3)

  5. Is white privelidge getting shot fighting for your country? Many soldiers would like to know.

    mg (8cbc69)

  6. Is black, brown red or yellow privilege getting shot fighting for your country? Many soldiers would like to know. Look up doris miller pearl harbor it will explain white privilege to the ignorant. Or the many black soldiers lynched while wearing the uniform of their country. Any of your soldier relatives lynched?

    asset (281ff3)

  7. My grandfather was shot twice, in WW 1, so shove it asshat, you pos.

    mg (8cbc69)

  8. and my father was shot in Korea, you ungrateful bastige.

    mg (8cbc69)

  9. @5 What exactly is the relevance of your remark to the conversation? People of all races have gotten shot for our country.

    (and since we are apparently playing veteran olympics, my gr. grand was a cavalry officer in WWI, one of my Gr. Uncles was a WWII casualty. My grandfather was a war casualty later. And my father was career military. I assume I am allowed to talk.)

    Nic (896fdf)

  10. Would Rush have even contemplated this interview if he hadn’t been fighting cancer?

    Hoi Polloi (dc4124)

  11. The better-looking Dana quoted:

    George Floyd, by everything I’ve been able to tell, was a good guy,” Limbaugh said. “I think that cop should be charged with first-degree murder.”

    Was Mr Floyd a good guy? He was a convicted felon:

    His life later took a different turn and in 2007 Floyd was charged with armed robbery in a home invasion in Houston and in 2009 was sentenced to five years in prison as part of a plea deal, according to court documents.

    That had been a long time ago, but it raises the question: why would four police officers, trained in a city that had been governed by the Democrats for decades — save for one man who was mayor for a whole day, Minneapolis’ last Republican mayor left office in 1961 — and the police chief has previously sued the department, when he was a regular officer, for discrimination against blacks in the department. The training the police receive was training specified by Democrats!

    So, with that training, and a department which would, in theory, weed out bad or racist officers, why would four officers use force against Mr Floyd without reason? The police love arrests made with arrestee compliance: less work for them and less chance of something bad happening. Perhaps one of the officers was having a bad day; we don’t know that yet. But why would four officers go along with a forcible apprehension, including pinning him to the ground by his neck even after he was handcuffed? If the officer pinning Mr Floyd to the ground was using extremely unwarranted force, why wouldn’t the other officers have said, “Hey, enough, we’re going to get in trouble for this”? The police report stated that Mr Floyd “physically resisted arrest,” but that isn’t much of a description. Why would a man now being called a “gentle giant” — a term also used by the media in the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — physically resist arrest?

    Unless you believe that the officers, all four of them, went to work that day with the intention of killing themselves a Negro, the story we are getting from the credentialed media just doesn’t make sense.

    Yes, the force used was excessive; if it results in a fatality, it is excessive by definition. But if the media stories are accurate, there was no reason to use force at all, and doing so could only cause the officers problems.

    There is something here that we are not being told.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  12. Unless you believe that the officers, all four of them, went to work that day with the intention of killing themselves a Negro, the story we are getting from the credentialed media just doesn’t make sense.

    Yes, the force used was excessive; if it results in a fatality, it is excessive by definition. But if the media stories are accurate, there was no reason to use force at all, and doing so could only cause the officers problems.

    There is something here that we are not being told.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/2/2020 @ 4:50 am

    I believe that the system we have in place makes it normal and acceptable for police to use excessive force as a standard practice for several reasons. The main is by shielding them from the consequences non-police would face if we made a similar mistake. There were a number of police officers on the scene. Not one attempted to reduce the amount of force being used. That tells me that they either viewed it as normal, or they felt the social consequences within their department of doing that would be worse then not.

    What if the fact that this system is in place even for a blue state is probably why the protest is so wide spread. This isn’t a problem that can be fixed by getting rid of a few bad people.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  13. Charlie Mange Tha Dog. I’m not his demographic. And not Rush’s, either, for a long time now.

    nk (1d9030)

  14. 12. 13.

    The assumption that excessive force would cause the officers problems somehow is itself faulty. Qualified immunity (a doctrine held by the courts, and nowhere in any state statutes that I am aware of) means that it’s extraordinarily difficult to sue police officers for any actions taken in the line of duty, and disciplinary processes used in most police departments virtually guarantee that the worst cops in any city won’t see consequences for their behavior beyond being fired.

    This does need to change. It’s not just a racial issue, though there may be that element in this particular case. We need to stop canonizing police officers as if they can do no wrong. We need to stop letting them stand as de facto paramilitary forces and start treating them like the members of the public they are.

    Gryph (08c844)

  15. There is something here that we are not being told.

    There are a lot of things we are not being told. Such as the secret war we have been having with Canada over Minnesota since 1858. Periodically, the U.S. Border Patrol moves the U.S. — Canada border markers to the Northern border of Iowa. Immediately, elite Canadian commando teams spring into action and move them back to the Northern border of Minnesota.

    nk (1d9030)

  16. Gryph wrote:

    The assumption that excessive force would cause the officers problems somehow is itself faulty. Qualified immunity (a doctrine held by the courts, and nowhere in any state statutes that I am aware of) means that it’s extraordinarily difficult to sue police officers for any actions taken in the line of duty, and disciplinary processes used in most police departments virtually guarantee that the worst cops in any city won’t see consequences for their behavior beyond being fired.

    “Beyond being fired” is still a pretty big problem for a police officer. Losing your job, and perhaps your pension or retirement is a big deal to most people, and that’s something most people try to avoid. The disciplinary process in Minneapolis got all four of these officers fired very quickly.

    Personally, I would like to see qualified immunity ended for certain officials. Not police officers or actual line of duty personnel, but for judges and parole boards; I would like to see them held liable for crimes committed by people they release early (parole boards) or sentence leniently (judges) if those crimes are committed by felons who would still, had they been sentenced to the maximum, still be in prison.

    The problem for line-of-duty personnel is that ending qualified immunity for them means no one would ever take the jobs; even a failed lawsuit means thousands of dollars in legal fees.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  17. Some guy from Chicago wrote:

    There are a lot of things we are not being told. Such as the secret war we have been having with Canada over Minnesota since 1858. Periodically, the U.S. Border Patrol moves the U.S. — Canada border markers to the Northern border of Iowa. Immediately, elite Canadian commando teams spring into action and move them back to the Northern border of Minnesota.

    I would be in favor of annexing all of Canada except Ontario and Quebec!

    My wife decided that we’d retire back to Kentucky rather than Maine, which I had suggested. Just imagine if I could have suggested Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island!

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  18. 17. Those legal fees should be born by the city that hires them, then. I have no problem with personal indemnification, but that’s not what qualified immunity is in practice. If cities have to bear the costs of their police forces’ mis- or malfeasance, that would be a pretty powerful incentive to keep them reined in. And that would also be a powerful incentive for taxpayer/citizen/community involvement, which I think is sorely lacking in most cities as it is.

    The badge doesn’t (shouldn’t?) confer special rights of any kind on an individual. I reject the notion that ending qualified immunity would cause an outright shortage of cops, but I think that anything that could possibly weed out the malcontents and leave a higher quality of officer is worth thinking about.

    Gryph (08c844)

  19. The Canada allusion need not be entirely off-topic. All you gotta do to see “what’s wrong with American cops?” is compare the history of the American police with the history of the Canadian police. From their beginnings.
    America: Thugs, gunmen, bullyboys for the rich, political appointees, gangsters, no different than the criminals they were supposed to protect us from.
    Canada: Hand-picked, military officer quality, honorable, intelligent, well-trained, highly-disciplined.

    nk (1d9030)

  20. “Beyond being fired” is still a pretty big problem for a police officer. Losing your job, and perhaps your pension or retirement is a big deal to most people, and that’s something most people try to avoid. The disciplinary process in Minneapolis got all four of these officers fired very quickly.

    Looks like there was a history of violence on the part of at least once of the officers involved int he death.

    Thao was also part of a 2017 excessive force lawsuit that was settled by the city of Minneapolis, according to a settlement obtained by CNN and an attorney for the plaintiff in the case.
    The lawsuit was brought by Lamar Ferguson, who claimed in the suit that Thao and another officer subjected him to “cruel and unusual” punishment when they arrested him in October 2014.
    According to the lawsuit, the officers used “unreasonable force,” including “punches, kicks and knees to the face and body while Ferguson was defenseless and handcuffed.” As a result, Ferguson suffered broken teeth, bruising and trauma, the lawsuit says.
    The city would go on to pay Ferguson and his attorney $25,000 to settle the lawsuit on December 11, 2017.
    Both the city and the officers denied liability in the settlement, according to a 2017 statement from the city of Minneapolis.
    George Floyd's brother on protesters: 'They have pain. They have the same pain that I feel'
    George Floyd’s brother on protesters: ‘They have pain. They have the same pain that I feel’
    According to the lawsuit, Ferguson was walking home from his grandmother’s house with his pregnant girlfriend on October 7, 2014, when they were approached by a Minneapolis police car with Thao and another office inside.
    The lawsuit claims the officers handcuffed Ferguson despite having no probable cause to believe he had committed a crime.
    The officers took Ferguson’s wallet and ID and the second officer ran the ID through the National Crime Information Center, a federal database, but no warrant showed up in the system, the lawsuit said.
    Despite this, the second officer “falsely stated that there was a warrant out for Plaintiff’s arrest,” the lawsuit states. The officer questioned Ferguson about a previous incident involving people who the officer believed were Ferguson’s family members, but Ferguson “said he had no information to tell the officers.”
    A physical altercation broke out, according to the lawsuit, then Thao threw Ferguson to the ground and began hitting him. Thao allegedly lifted Ferguson’s head up by grabbing the back of Ferguson’s hoodie as the other officer allegedly kicked him in the mouth.
    Ferguson was taken to a hospital, but allegedly the officers “expressed impatience with medical staff caring” for Ferguson. When he was discharged, the officers allegedly threw his discharge papers — including prescription painkillers — in the garbage as they left the hospital, the lawsuit states.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  21. 21. Without a disciplinary paper trail, we don’t have much to go on in a trial except “he had a lot of complaints filed against him.” Given the antipathy of a lot of citizens towards the police these days, I’m not sure how much water that will hold with a jury.

    Gryph (08c844)

  22. Gryph, I agree, that’s why I pointed out the details of the case against Officer Thao. My point is that excessive force doesn’t seem to result in consequences. I did a lousy job of pasting that in from the CNN site though.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  23. The cut and paste was fine, Time123, but you lost me at “pregnant girlfriend”.

    nk (1d9030)

  24. This was an interesting conversation. Basically the opposite of Alan Colmes getting his ass kicked by Sean Hannity every night.

    Unfortunately, it was short and they talked past eachother a lot. I agree with DJ Envy and pals that the black experience is to be subject to paranoia all the time, to have anxiety when talking to cops, and that leads to a lot of problems if the cop is dumb (anxiety can manifest as attitude, and attitude can be resolved with pettiness). I also agree with Rush that America provides blacks with lots of opportunity. The problem isn’t the lack of opportunity (anyone can avail themselves of a GI Bill, but not everyone has a dad, clean water, a cultural upbringing where they even understand success). You could look at poverty and recognize plenty of whites have the same problem. You could look at crime and notice a lot of it’s caused by institutional failure. Or you could look at those things in reverse. If you do something bad enough to go to prison, that is bad for your kids’s future too.

    The solutions should be practical.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  25. 23. Indeed. It doesn’t result in consequences, but talk about civilian review boards in every city or scrapping qualified immunity, and then all of a sudden, “No one would want to become a cop.” I think that no one who isn’t cut out to be a cop should be allowed to be one.

    Gryph (08c844)

  26. I think we had police before we had qualified immunity.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  27. 27. Qualified immunity, like so many of the various-and-sundry “civil rights” government foists upon us these days, is a construct of the courts. In practice, it seems to mean that courts will pour over case law in determining whether a civil suit should be brought against an officer without even bothering to look at if what the officer did was actually against the law.

    Gryph (08c844)

  28. Here’s the thing. I think that we gotta stop acting like white supremacy isn’t done by design, the whole function of systemic racism is to marginalize black people and it’s very hard to get any damn near 80-year-old white man to change a system that’s been working for him and his family for years, I don’t care if it’s Biden or Trump. So, once again, we need people that are willing to dismantle the mechanism of white supremacy, period.

    Its hard to make sense of this gibberish, but if it means anything, this guy wants the USA to completely change and put black people – or people of color – in charge. Which is odd, given that Blacks make up 13% of the country. We have “White supremacy” for a couple reasons, one of which is Whites built the country and another is they make up 65% of it.

    Of course, Blacks say they want “people of color” in charge, but I doubt they’d be happy in China or Mexico, since the ‘people of color’ in those countries wouldn’t give them affirmative action, set-asides, or quotas. And I sincerly doubt the Japanese or Chinese would let their “Minorities” riot over the death of one person who was resisting arrest.

    rcocean (846d30)

  29. 22. Gryph (08c844) — 6/2/2020 @ 6:40 am

    we don’t have much to go on in a trial except “he had a lot of complaints filed against him.” Given the antipathy of a lot of citizens towards the police these days, I’m not sure how much water that will hold with a jury.

    Most malpractice lawsuits against doctors are unfounded (remember it has to be that the doctor fell below the standard of care = was worse than other doctors) but the doctors who are worst get sued the most.

    Same thing here. Two thirds of the complaints might be unfounded, and maybe most people with good cause don’t sue or complain, but if someone gets sued or complained about a lot, it’s an indication.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  30. These people talking to Rush kept mentioning racism and white supremacy. But Mr. Floyd was killed in liberal/leftist Minneapolis which hasn’t had an R Mayor for 30 years. We’ve had riots in DC and Atlanta, which are black majority and black run cities. Del Blasio is married to a black, and NYC has been one of the most left-wing cities in the USA for 30 years. Go down the list, all these cities that have major riots against “racism” have been run by liberal Democrats for 30,40,50 years.

    Are the NYC protesters attacking Del Blasio’s “racism”? If not, who are attacking and rioting against?

    rcocean (846d30)

  31. Two asians (chinese and thai) one african american and one white cop. A diversity tableau.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  32. Wow, so much wrong in just a few lines.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  33. Mr Finkelman wrote:

    Two thirds of the complaints might be unfounded, and maybe most people with good cause don’t sue or complain, but if someone gets sued or complained about a lot, it’s an indication.

    I wish I could believe that, but with my television seemingly inundated with attorney ads for suing various industries for all sorts of personal injuries, I have my doubts.

    I’m old enough to remember when attorneys could not advertise. That was wisely tossed as a violation of free speech, but there have been a lot of negative consequences of that.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  34. Wilhelm is a second generation lefty who was all in the sandinistas in the 80s

    https://lawofselfdefense.com/did-baden-autopsy-find-clinical-evidence-floyd-killed-by-asphyxia-no/

    Narciso (7404b5)

  35. It seems the Floyd family has already received $6 million from its Gofundme page with more to come. And the wrongful death suit will get them $20-40 million more. Meanwhile, the Federal Cop assassinated in Oakland, gets nothing.

    You can’t blame black crooks for resisting arrest. Its a gold mine for them. Assuming they live. And even if they die, their families are set for life.

    rcocean (846d30)

  36. The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/2/2020 @ 4:50 am

    Unless you believe that the officers, all four of them, went to work that day with the intention of killing themselves a Negro,

    Whichmakes no sense. Why that day, after years on the police force?

    the story we are getting from the credentialed media just doesn’t make sense.

    It might make sense as sadism.

    Yes, the force used was excessive; if it results in a fatality, it is excessive by definition. But if the media stories are accurate, there was no reason to use force at all,

    Not that kind of force. And racism is not an explanation.

    There is something here that we are not being told.

    At some spots I read, video is almost muted.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  37. Charlamagne eviscerated kamala harris when she thought it would save her, same for bidens recent ingestion of shoe leather.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  38. Thanks Narciso. interesting. I was wondering how the private doctor arrived at a different conclusion after autopsying the same body, and now we know he didn’t. He just made up the fact that Floyd asphyxiated by looking at the video! And the MSM presents this as a FACT from a respected Doctor!

    rcocean (846d30)

  39. rocean wrote:

    These people talking to Rush kept mentioning racism and white supremacy. But Mr. Floyd was killed in liberal/leftist Minneapolis which hasn’t had an R Mayor for 30 years. We’ve had riots in DC and Atlanta, which are black majority and black run cities. Del Blasio is married to a black, and NYC has been one of the most left-wing cities in the USA for 30 years. Go down the list, all these cities that have major riots against “racism” have been run by liberal Democrats for 30,40,50 years.

    It’s hardly just “black majority and black run cities.” Portland, Oregon, 2.9% black, and Seattle, Washington, 7.0% black, have seen their own ‘disturbances.’ But yes, the cities with the ‘disturbances’ are all now, and have for a long time been, run by the Democrats. Why, it’s almost as though Democratic policies don’t work!

    The real problem isn’t racial, but urbanization and liberalism: too many people, stacked too closely together, with too many opportunities to get pissed off and share that anger with other people, seems to me to be the real cause of our problems. It can seem racial, because so many large cities east of the Mississippi are heavily black, but Denver, 10.7% black, has had the riots as well. Lexington, Kentucky, 14.7% black, has seen the demonstrations, but little violence; Lexington’s population, 324,000, is much lower and while there are several depressed areas, the people aren’t stacked up like cordwood.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  40. Why do these incidents always bring out the deranged cop haters? They seem to be given a free hand to say the most absurd things about the police. It seems to me, that 3 of the 4 Cops were just “following orders”. Chauvin was the senior policeman and told everyone he had everything under control. So they deferred to him.

    I’m really curious as to why Chauvin chose sitting on Floyd’s neck as a method of restraining him. And why he kept on him for 8 minutes, when it seemed completely unnecessary.

    rcocean (846d30)

  41. It’s hardly just “black majority and black run cities.” Portland, Oregon, 2.9% black, and Seattle, Washington, 7.0% black, have seen their own ‘disturbances.’

    I never said it was.

    rcocean (846d30)

  42. The real problem isn’t racial, but urbanization and liberalism: too many people, stacked too closely together, with too many opportunities to get pissed off and share that anger with other people, seems to me to be the real cause of our problems.

    Maybe you can explain why Shanghai, Seoul, Rome, Bombay and Tokyo are all “packed together” and have no problems of this kind.

    rcocean (846d30)

  43. No i think the problem there is ‘woke’ white people.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  44. I’m really curious as to why Chauvin chose sitting on Floyd’s neck as a method of restraining him. And why he kept on him for 8 minutes, when it seemed completely unnecessary.

    Truly it is a mystery.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  45. Can we take anything at face value:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/brithume/status/1267817562357641216

    Narciso (7404b5)

  46. Maybe you can explain why Shanghai, Seoul, Rome, Bombay and Tokyo are all “packed together” and have no problems of this kind.

    After you show me the stamps on your passport from those places.

    nk (1d9030)

  47. As to the why of Rushbo’s visit, maybe EIB is looking for flava in its lineup…Jason Whitlock is being let go by Fox Sports, that might be a no-brainer as well.

    urbanleftbehind (f7f728)

  48. CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: This is Charlamagne talking. We’ve seen numerous police killings of unarmed black people in this country. Why is the George Floyd situation the one that’s making you say enough is enough and this needs to stop. Why this situation in particular?

    Why is he asking this question?

    The answer is: Because this one is true, and it cannot be mistake or something done without thinking. It took place over a prolonged period of time. On video.

    What’s not true is this can only happen to an African American, or that violence from police is the chief danger to blacks, or that this only happens in the United States of America (you should read about Brazil * , or the Philippines or Mexico) or that police are the government employees most likely to maltreat people or worse. Correction officers – prison guards – are.
    ———————-
    * https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/world/americas/brazil-rio-police-violence.html

    Rodrigo died on the way to the hospital, bleeding from a gunshot wound in his arm — and three in his back. The police never claimed he was armed, and one of the officers involved, Sergeant Sergio Britto, was still on duty despite being on trial for murder, accused of shooting another man in the neck at close range.

    The death of Rodrigo added to a record number of killings by the police in Rio last year — 1,814 — a surge of hundreds in a state with a long history of police brutality and a political leadership that has vowed to “dig graves” to stop crime.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  49. Having read the transcript, I think when Rush said this

    That’s the point of America, it can for anybody who wants to adapt to it, for anybody who wants to try to take advantage of the unique opportunities that exist in the United States

    He didn’t quite get it right. For most blacks it’s a lot harder to take advantage of those opportunities than it is for whites. There’s a whole bunch of factors that contribute to that. Some can be blamed on black culture, but not all. A lot of those factors are the result of so many blacks being poor. But the reason so many blacks are poor is because of past racism. And all those differences in opportunity are what the people who talk fancy talk call systemic racism and white privilege. And the result, all those blacks being poor, is what they call white supremacy.

    To get rid of it I think we need to work at getting rid of as much of those factors as we can. Some of them are intertwined. Some of those factors will only disappear when black culture decides to get rid of self-harming behaviors. But some of them everyone has to work on together.

    Kishnevi (cdaffb)

  50. rcocean (846d30) — 6/2/2020 @ 7:05 am . Del Blasio is married to a black, and NYC has been one of the most left-wing cities in the USA for 30 years.

    For 20 of these years it had a mayor who got elected as a Republican.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  51. And in seven years its become snake plissken territory.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  52. I agree with everything you said, kishnevi.

    Dana (0feb77)

  53. Some people out there have what psychologists call the criminal personality. A key element of this is extraversion….or the heightened biological need for environmental stimulation to feel excitement. Add in neuroticism…being more reactive and volatile….and psychoticism…..being anti-social and lacking empathy….and you got a bad dude who’s looking for trouble. Some of these bad dudes are naturally attracted to the power and authority of being a police officer…..the thrill of apprehending the criminal…and the control of making these criminals submit. Some of these bad dudes will actually have the discipline and intelligence to make it through the schooling and training to get out on the streets. I would be curious how closely Chauvin fits the profile.

    Now there are good cops that share some of these characteristics but perhaps not as acutely anti-social or volatile….add in esprit de corps….and it’s hard to weed out bad ones that have learned to play the disciplinary system. I think that’s where we are at. Maybe police unions have too much power as well. I just can’t believe it’s an “easy problem” that….either side of the political fracas….is simply ignoring. I think Chauvin probably took reasonable training and perverted it for his own jollies….he should be made an example….and will be.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  54. Someone has to understand that de-policing is a form of racism.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  55. Rush probably means it, as does trump, but they dont accept his goodwill just a sign of weakness, the cities where ‘handsoff’ policing is practiced is where thd worst disturbances are. Of course it doesnt help when the marxist mayor in gotham openly shows his contempt for law enforcement,

    Narciso (7404b5)

  56. 55. AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 6/2/2020 @ 8:07 am

    ….add in esprit de corps….and it’s hard to weed out bad ones that have learned to play the disciplinary system.

    It’s espeially hard whe they weed out people who are too independent (by psychological tests before hiring)

    They are literally screening AGAINST anyone who would not be part of the “blue wall of silence.”

    https://www.thebalancecareers.com/psychological-exams-and-screening-for-police-officers-974785

    Just understand what they are actually screening out.

    They are, in effect, screening out whistle blowers or people who will disagree with other policemen. One of the things (not mentioned here) I think it is how much they need other people’s approval.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  57. NJRob (4d595c) — 6/2/2020 @ 8:24 am

    But I thought Antifa wasn’t an organization?

    It’s organized, but the organization isn’t really “Antifa.”

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  58. Of course it is but it operated on a cell structure like al queda or earth first common nodes financing et al. But the bureau has been focused on weightier matters

    Narciso (7404b5)

  59. Rob, I guess you missed Lightfoot’s reference to street gangs?

    Kishnevi (cdaffb)

  60. I think there are different topics in play. Is White Supremacy pervasive in every institution? Whether or not it is, what do we do with the fact that black people think it is? (Personally I don’t know what to do with that impasse. it seems the toughest nut to crack). Is some police and/or criminal reform beneficial and possible? (That seems to be an area where we can find common ground). We are missing a leader who can try to address these issues and let discontented black people know they are being listened to, while enforcing the law. Trump seems to be focussed on the latter but has no clue how to address the former.

    JRH (52aed3)

  61. Two of the things I’ve dealt with are kids in foster care and crime, and I agree with Kishnevi. The institutional issues leak from one issue to the next. A white kid is less likely to wind up in foster care than a black kid, or stay there, even if their circumstances are identical. Crime, poverty, bad sanitation, schools, family structure, jobs, success in school. It’s all related, and because of this, it is easy to cherry pick. The paranoid racism where a black man is followed around 7/11 or gets a call to the police for walking through a parking lot in the evening can be called profiling, but eventually, all this extra police attention does lead to disproportionate results as well as a lot of anxiety if a black man is talking to a cop. That anxiety can come across as attitude, and a sensitive cop who doesn’t get it can resolve that attitude with pettiness.

    It’s all intertwined, but from where I sit, one of the most fundamental solutions lies in how cops are hired by agencies too desperate to fill gaps. And also what happens to the bad cops. By bad cops I don’t mean the ones on the front page of the newspaper. I know what happens to them. I mean the bad cops who resign in lieu of termination and have a job as a cop a month later. I mean the jaded cops who have PTSD and snap or just lack perspective on what their actions are doing to people. My experience is that police departments is a tendency to advance and hire yes-men in some diluted version of military discipline. Bringing up concerns can be interpreted as disrespect, bad attitude, no matter how constructive it is. Most of the good cops I’ve worked with have left because of this problem, citing the problem, giving the agency the idea it’s somehow actually benefited from the departure.

    I wonder if instead of eliminating qualified immunity we instead came up with a special kind of insurance for police officers. This insurance could be a government entity with access to a cop’s complaint file and psychological evaluation (which would be annual), as well as a cop’s performance on an annual skills and physical fitness examination. Skills would include knowledge of the law, but also gift of gab. The cop gets a stipend to cover the average cost of insurance. If their premiums are cheaper, it’s effectively a pay increase. If they are more expensive, it’s effectively a pay cut. And if the risk is to great, perhaps this insurance is denied, ending the cop’s license.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  62. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/interracial-violence-in-american-by-the-numbers.php

    Just the facts please. Feelings have no place in the law.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  63. Part of the problem with bad cops is that the police unions are so powerful. Politicians don’t want to take them on because they need their support in elections. How would it look to voters if the candidate can’t garner the support law enforcement? They have deep pockets and a strong image that appeals to voters who support “law and order” candidates. Congress could take this up, individual members could, but no one really wants to.

    I read that the rate of cops reinstated in Minneapolis after suspension is around 43%. Like teachers unions, police unions work hard to protect all cops, both the good and the bad.

    Dana (0feb77)

  64. 67. I think the politicians are partly to blame, but canonization of LEOs by the people is at the root of this problem. If the people wanted cops held accountable badly enough, they’d be held accountable.

    Gryph (08c844)

  65. 65. You don’t need an insurance scheme for cops. Just pass an ordinance that says the city holds them indemnified for civil damages. That way, the cop feels free to act, but the city will do everything in its power not to enrage the taxpayers by letting cops run roughshod.

    Under qualified immunity, cops that should go to trial — even for criminal complaints at times — never see the inside of a courtroom.

    Gryph (08c844)

  66. Gryph, I don’t understand your rejection of my solution, which isn’t really that different from yours except mine is much better at functionally weeding out bad cops and yours is useless.

    Can you explain?

    Under qualified immunity, cops that should go to trial — even for criminal complaints at times — never see the inside of a courtroom.

    Can you describe the actual standard for qualified immunity?

    Dustin (d59cff)

  67. https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/02/las-vegas-st-louis-police-cops-shot-george-floyd-protests-riots-buffalo-new-york-suv-run-over-chicago/

    More officers shot in Missouri and the officer from Vegas I posted earlier died and was murdered in cold blood.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  68. 71. The actual standard for qualified immunity is murky, since it is a construct of case law and not statutory, but generally, cops are immune from civil suits while acting in the line of duty.

    So, let’s say that SWAT team shoots someone after getting the wrong address in a no-knock raid, or trying to serve someone in a crack house that they didn’t realize had already been arrested two days ago in another precinct. The next of kin have no recourse for a civil suit because “qualified immunity,” and the cops won’t arrest their own on suspicion of a crime committed while in the line of duty no matter how grotesquely negligent.

    My solution is ultimately to put the taxpayer on the hook for civil damages, but in order to do that, you have to scrap the idea of qualified immunity completely. Since it wasn’t enacted by passing a law, you’d have to convince the courts to scrap it as a matter of case law and tradition. That is an awfully long row to hoe.

    And I’m not necessarily criticizing your take on things. We’re bouncing around ideas. Some of them might be better than others. Some of them might be better than mine. But if there’s one thing about community policing that the George Floyd incident has convinced me of, it’s that the idea of qualified immunity costs more lives than it saves in the net.

    Gryph (08c844)

  69. 73. Let me also clarify, qualified immunity is not about summary judgement or deciding a case on its merits. Criminally negligent cops, by the standard used for citizens, more often than not never see the inside of a court room. At all.

    Gryph (08c844)

  70. @2.Sorry, Dana. I just can’t get interested in anybody who calls himself “Charlamagne tha God”.

    ROFLMAOPIP

    Sorry, norcal. Just can’t get interested in an oinking Limbaugh, who proclaims that he’s broadcasting “with talent on loan from God.”

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  71. Dustin,

    I like your idea because it adds a market approach.

    My limited police experience involves two more observations: Big city police often see the public as threats, probably because they interact daily and exclusively with problem people. There are even police who are known as being more forceful, and they tend to take the lead (and their fellow police want them to) when there is trouble.

    In small cities, police violence is rare and they see more everyday folks. However, some people and police get hurt because small town police training and experience only takes you so far to prepare for riots, etc. Maybe there could be some kind of big-small police exchange where both sides could benefit?

    DRJ (15874d)

  72. This is a radical proposal. How about we make the qualifications for entering, attending, and graduating from, the police academies the same as for the military academies and OCS?

    nk (1d9030)

  73. 76. Get rid of military surplus equipment in municipal police departments. The spirit of Posse Comitatus should extend to paramilitary training in police departments.

    Gryph (08c844)

  74. I wonder if instead of eliminating qualified immunity we instead came up with a special kind of insurance for police officers. This insurance could be a government entity with access to a cop’s complaint file and psychological evaluation (which would be annual), as well as a cop’s performance on an annual skills and physical fitness examination. Skills would include knowledge of the law, but also gift of gab. The cop gets a stipend to cover the average cost of insurance. If their premiums are cheaper, it’s effectively a pay increase. If they are more expensive, it’s effectively a pay cut. And if the risk is to great, perhaps this insurance is denied, ending the cop’s license.

    This is interesting. It seems like cities need to be incentivized to be more circumspect about training and hiring. They need to have a financial stake in the process, and one that can cost them if they are lax, or continue to hire those that can’t pass annual exams of all kinds. Also, when a cop like Chauvrin already had 18 complaints lodged against him, and “only two of the complaints were “closed with discipline” where a letter of reprimand was issued,” the public deserves to know why he is still on the force, let alone on the streets. And the police union needs to be held accountable for putting him back on the streets.

    Dana (0feb77)

  75. 64. JRH (52aed3) — 6/2/2020 @ 8:56 am

    . Is White Supremacy pervasive in every institution? Whether or not it is, what do we do with the fact that black people think it is?

    Well, you argue against it.

    You fight words with words, and not with deeds. If you try deeds, they’ll just tell more lies, and meanwhile you’ve shot your credibility.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  76. Regarding the role that police unions have in all of this, I have been advocating an idea for teachers’ unions that I think would be applicable. The way it works is that when a police officer or teacher is suspended from duty and faces a disciplinary hearing, instead of paying them with public money while they wait to have their internal disciplinary committee hearing, which can take months — or, in the case of teachers, years — the salary for the suspended employee goes into an escrow account while the suspension is in effect (the taxpayer would still be paying health and retirement benefits). It would be up to the union to provide loans to the suspended employee to tide him/her over until the disciplinary hearing is completed.

    If the employee is returned to work the funds in the escrow account can be used to backfill his/her salary and then the employee can pay back the union for the loan. But if it is ruled that the employee is to lose his/her job, the escrow account goes back into the budget and it would be up to the union as to whether or not to waive the loan to the terminated employee. What I like about this idea is that it does give the union some disincentive for trying to delay and drag out the disciplinary hearing, which even the Los Angeles Times admits is a tried-and-true strategy where teacher disciplinary hearings are concerned.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  77. One of the biggest problems with police recruiting over the last 20 years has been the drift of enlisted men from front line combat units into LEO positions, and LEO’s being called up continuously in the Reserves/Guard.

    It maybe feel natural as both carry weapons, but that’s as similar as it gets. Not only are the skill sets different, the entire training regimen is exactly the opposite for what you need in the two different jobs. We do a fantastic job as a country building a fighting force, but when it comes to separation, it’s an afterthought, and it causes many civilian problems.

    On retirement, or deactivation of a Reserve unit, there should be a buffer time that allows for the decompression that has to occur, and in many cases where the soldier went straight from high school to 4-12 years in, with nearly all of that time either being deployed, or training to be deployed, the soldier has zero life skills for the civilian world. Throw on top of that, the reality that many are married, but have spent little time with their family, and can’t deal with the pace or frustration that the real world holds.

    The worst transition is for the SOCOM guys. The transition from deployed operator operating operationally to house dad can be as little as 2 weeks. Lots of guys fall into law enforcement as an occupation (or training law enforcement), because they, and the chiefs hiring them, think the leadership and experience will apply. The leadership does, the skills, not so much, but that has tended to bleed into the personality from the few, into the general organization, so you have police, from Chief->Captain->boot all with a “warrior” mentality and you get things like yesterday, where Mark Esper was talking about “Dominating the Battlespace” and the battlespace is America. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! Wrong. Think Mayberry not Faluja.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  78. I read that the rate of cops reinstated in Minneapolis after suspension is around 43%. Like teachers unions, police unions work hard to protect all cops, both the good and the bad.

    Dana (0feb77) — 6/2/2020 @ 9:08 am

    It’s worse than that, Dana. If a cop resigns before they are fired, they usually can get a job at a sister agency. My department had no union at all. We have a choice between CLEAT and TMPA, where we pay monthly dues and can get some legal assistance. The real problem stems entirely from departments desperate to hire cops, happy to hire one who already has a license, maybe some experience, despite some misconduct.

    If the profession was almost entirely high quality, intelligent, honorable men and women, their capacity to work through complicated challenges like systemic racism would be better.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  79. I completely agree, Dustin.

    felipe (023cc9)

  80. In small cities, police violence is rare and they see more everyday folks. However, some people and police get hurt because small town police training and experience only takes you so far to prepare for riots, etc.

    That’s an interesting point, DRJ, and it also affects issues of police compensation. A year or two ago my town’s police union was agitating for more pay and better benefits. They pointed out, correctly, that our town is relatively affluent and an expensive place in which to reside, yet Los Angeles Police Department officers on average made more money and had better benefits. One of the counters to their argument was that our town has nowhere near the level of crime or the deep-seated social problems that LAPD officers face, so patrolling our quiet little town is far less stressful and dangerous. In the end there was a compromise and we did give the police a bit more money than we had initially offered, though they still make less than the average LAPD officer. But I’m wondering too if you also don’t have a situation where the really macho and tough cops don’t gravitate to the big city work and the more personable and laid-back cops end up patrolling the more quiet suburbs.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  81. It’s worse than that, Dana. If a cop resigns before they are fired, they usually can get a job at a sister agency.

    Yep, and again, this is the exact same problem that we’re having with bad teachers too.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  82. One of the biggest problems with police recruiting over the last 20 years has been the drift of enlisted men from front line combat units into LEO positions, and LEO’s being called up continuously in the Reserves/Guard.

    I’ve been doxxed and the cops I work with have often joked about some of the nutty things said of me by the left, but despite that I’ll say one of the best cops I ever met was an incredible soldier. Incredible leader. He also had a PTSD disability check coming in every month. One day he snapped on a stressful scene where someone died while we gave him CPR, and for several months after on other stressful calls, particularly towards suspects. He wound up in therapy only because several of us demanded it. He shouldn’t be a cop. Though he wasn’t in special forces he has referred to his work as a cop as being an operator, which I find extremely cringey and inappropriate.

    Think Mayberry not Faluja.

    Amen. But we need to build that culture. All cop shows are about action and sex now. We need a cultural shift. We need leadership far above the PD level to recognize the need to embrace the proud peace officer instead of the gritty badass.

    On retirement, or deactivation of a Reserve unit, there should be a buffer time that allows for the decompression that has to occur, and in many cases where the soldier went straight from high school to 4-12 years in, with nearly all of that time either being deployed, or training to be deployed, the soldier has zero life skills for the civilian world. Throw on top of that, the reality that many are married, but have spent little time with their family, and can’t deal with the pace or frustration that the real world holds.

    This is incredibly insightful. I would say cops with PTSD diagnosis should not be cops. It’s really common.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  83. I’ve seen teachers who have had legitimate complaints made against them, the process precisely followed to relieve them of their duty, and yet only end up in the dance of the lemons – bounced from school to school, and bounced yet again if word gets out about them. Unions are fiercely powerful forces to go up against on some industries and institutions. And it costs a whole lot of money and time to effectively terminate someone.

    Dana (0feb77)

  84. In small cities, police violence is rare and they see more everyday folks. However, some people and police get hurt because small town police training and experience only takes you so far to prepare for riots, etc. Maybe there could be some kind of big-small police exchange where both sides could benefit?

    DRJ (15874d) — 6/2/2020 @ 9:36 am

    This is an interesting idea.

    My (somewhat smaller) department has its own quasi-SWAT team, its own hostage negotiators, its own bomb detection team (with mallinois, which are very impressive dogs, but dangerous and difficult and expensive). I’ve pointed out a few times that Austin has much better versions of these things. They aren’t better because our small department is bad. They are better because they do these tasks over and over.

    One reason why my small department has all these specialized units is its campaign to get as much grant funding as possible. It’s created a perverse incentive that, in my opinion, has actually taken cops off the street. The rare time we need to serve a warrant or talk to a barricaded person, we probably should eat our egos and call APD to take over, but whenever we’ve done that it’s caused tremendous internal butthurt.

    I’ve never considered that the larger agency could benefit from our better Andy Taylor type cops and I am very sure their brass would find the concept of getting our help absurd (again ego). But you’re probably right.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  85. 73. Gryph (08c844) — 6/2/2020 @ 9:24 am

    The next of kin have no recourse for a civil suit because “qualified immunity,”

    They have recourse to a lawsuit against the city, or whatever jurisdiction employed the policeman, just not against the cop personally.

    Normally a lawyer would want more to sue the government because it has deeper pockets, but there are circumstances where sovereign immunity exists.

    and the cops won’t arrest their own on suspicion of a crime committed while in the line of duty no matter how grotesquely negligent.

    That’s because of the psychological testing they get before being hired. They get plus points for “brotherhood.” (I’m looking for some proof) Absence of that could disqualify someone. A very bad idea, because what you we want is not conformity, but integrity and values. Also, maybe of course, patience. And not to take anything personally.

    My solution is ultimately to put the taxpayer on the hook for civil damages,

    That’s the way it is now.

    https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-stringer-report-nypd-payout-settlement-lawsuits-20190415-2zzm2zkhpna63dtlcr2zks6eoq-story.html

    NYC spent $230M on NYPD settlements last year: report

    …Roughly $108 million was related to allegations of police misconduct like false arrests and excessive force, more than doubling the $48 million paid out for such issues a decade ago.

    Now the problem with this is that many of these lawsuits might be unjustified.

    The de Blasio mayoralty has been settling more of them or paying bigger amounts. Which means more are filed, after a while. The police people whose conduct is at question cab complain they don’t get a chance to defend themselves. They may have altered policy and wee settling ewer claims, but then they were paying larger amounts.

    The number and cost of settlements has gone nothing but up since de Blasio became mayor. Number too, maybe. They started preemptively settling them before lawsuits are filed/

    https://nypost.com/2020/01/31/city-payouts-in-nypd-misconduct-cases-up-by-nearly-30m/

    But the Legal Aid Society says there are major problems with the way the city reports the data that obscures the costs of these types of cases. For instance, lawsuits that are settled before they even get to court are not included in the figures.

    A rep with Legal Aid also said the fact that the city only releases the last five years of data obscures the running totals as old cases settle years later.

    “An epidemic of misconduct within the New York City Police Department continues to cost New York City taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year,” Corey Stoughton of Legal Aid said.

    Well, they would say that more settlements = more misconduct.

    but in order to do that, you have to scrap the idea of qualified immunity completely. Since it wasn’t enacted by passing a law, you’d have to convince the courts to scrap it as a matter of case law and tradition. That is an awfully long row to hoe.

    It still could maybe be corrected by a law. Why is it necessary to get rid of qualified immunity to get civil liability? One would think that removing most penalties, including financial, would make it easier to get at the truth.

    Qualified immunity isn’t intended to save lives. It’s intended to remove a fear of action. Prosecutors also have even stronger qualified immunity

    s in the net.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  86. 90. I come from a town of about 27,000 people. We still have a few cops that regularly walk a downtown beat. “Downtown” here means something different than it does in Minneapolis, but I’d say in my home town, we’re pretty close to a Peelian community ideal.

    Gryph (08c844)

  87. Hope you’re well, DCSCA.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  88. One reason why my small department has all these specialized units is its campaign to get as much grant funding as possible. It’s created a perverse incentive that, in my opinion, has actually taken cops off the street.

    Are these mostly federal grants? Every since the Clinton crime bill of 1993 which sought to artificially inflate the number of police officers in order to keep a stupid campaign promise, I have always thought that federal money given to police officers should be in the form of block grants and not tied to a specific purpose. That is, of course, once I am forced the accept the idea of the federal government sending money to local police departments.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  89. “The transition from deployed operator operating operationally to house dad can be as little as 2 weeks.”

    Yeah, it seems to bring in a tactical preference against de-escalation. I look at the Garner incident in NYC…..where there might have been nine officers trying to arrest a big overweight guy who was clearly distraught and uncooperative…..on a complaint of illegally selling cigarettes….a pretty non-violent offense with a non-urgent response required. Could they have come back the next day and allowed the situation to cool down and given Garner an opportunity to cooperate (maybe give his family a chance to square the situation)? Certainly. Would it have inconvenienced the officers? Yes. Would it have been more the “Mayberry” response versus the “Fallujah” response. Of course. They knew where he lived and where to find him…he was no risk to the community.

    Again, the counter to this is “what if he had a weapon”….or it only takes one such hesitation to put an officer in danger as you just don’t know what a desperate suspect will do….not everyone is Amos from Mayberry! That’s what makes the job tough. Cops are taught techniques that they want to employ for real…to have live practice….sometimes those tactics are warranted…a lot of times they are not. Soldiering is different from protecting and serving. Is the arrest worth the worst possible outcome that escalation my bring?

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  90. I believe they are, JVW. A lot of FEMA training goes along with it (and anyone can take these ICS Fema classes. They are incredibly banal and unhelpful, almost out of a Monty Python sketch).

    Don’t get me wrong. I sincerely believe in cops as a generally great group of people. Good intentions don’t always lead to Dairy Queen unfortunately.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  91. 95. The way it was explained to me, by someone who worked for a couple of years as a cop in my hometown, is that there is a “continuum of force.” Seven or eight steps or something, and you never want to go more than one step above what the suspect is doing. The penultimate step on that continuum is “display of deadly force,” which doesn’t always have to be a gun, and of course, the last step is “use of deadly force.”

    I don’t think Derek Chauvin ever believed he was using deadly force. For whatever reason, I do think he was using excessive force. It will be up to a jury to decide if that constitutes reckless disregard for life, though I certainly have my own opinion.

    Gryph (08c844)

  92. The way it works is that when a police officer or teacher is suspended from duty and faces a disciplinary hearing, instead of paying them with public money while they wait to have their internal disciplinary committee hearing, which can take months — or, in the case of teachers, years — the salary for the suspended employee goes into an escrow account while the suspension is in effect (the taxpayer would still be paying health and retirement benefits). It would be up to the union to provide loans to the suspended employee to tide him/her over until the disciplinary hearing is completed.

    If the employee is returned to work the funds in the escrow account can be used to backfill his/her salary and then the employee can pay back the union for the loan. But if it is ruled that the employee is to lose his/her job, the escrow account goes back into the budget and it would be up to the union as to whether or not to waive the loan to the terminated employee. What I like about this idea is that it does give the union some disincentive for trying to delay and drag out the disciplinary hearing, which even the Los Angeles Times admits is a tried-and-true strategy where teacher disciplinary hearings are concerned.

    This sounds good in theory, but I don’t see teachers unions entertaining the idea. There would be massive rebellion in the ranks as it would be perceived as lifting protections for which members pay.

    Dana (0feb77)

  93. This:

    One of the biggest problems with police recruiting over the last 20 years has been the drift of enlisted men from front line combat units into LEO positions, and LEO’s being called up continuously in the Reserves/Guard.

    It maybe feel natural as both carry weapons, but that’s as similar as it gets. Not only are the skill sets different, the entire training regimen is exactly the opposite for what you need in the two different jobs. We do a fantastic job as a country building a fighting force, but when it comes to separation, it’s an afterthought, and it causes many civilian problems.

    They are not the same skill sets, and the idea that one is naturally transferable to another role ends up hurting the PD. A fighting force is just that. The police are on a public relations/protection mission, and often that requires communications skills, patience, and the ability to effectively convince all parties that you are there to serve that community as much as any other community.

    Dana (0feb77)

  94. This sounds good in theory, but I don’t see teachers unions entertaining the idea.

    Oh of course not. It would have to be forced upon them, and Democrat-controlled cities would never dare such a bold move.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  95. 91. Qualified immunity makes bad behavior on the part of cops a lot less expensive for the ones who engage in it. There ought to be no special privileges or rights for cops just because they wear a badge.

    Gryph (08c844)

  96. 81. 98. 100.

    The way it works is that when a police officer or teacher is suspended from duty and faces a disciplinary hearing, instead of paying them with public money while they wait to have their internal disciplinary committee hearing, which can take months — or, in the case of teachers, years — the salary for the suspended employee goes into an escrow account while the suspension is in effect (the taxpayer would still be paying health and retirement benefits). It would be up to the union to provide loans to the suspended employee to tide him/her over until the disciplinary hearing is completed.

    This could be done maybe, if, at the time that he new system was instituted, the union was provided with a fixed sum of money per suspension to pay the salaries of the suspended members per suspension. Which should actually maybe be triple the amount of money currently spent on salaries of suspended members.

    Remember, the goal is to actually fire someone not to save money, except from better operations and from money lost because of lawsuits. And it has to be that high to get the union to agree.

    If he kwpt hia job, the union would be reimbursed what they spent. If he lost his job, the union would be out his salary. If there were more suspensons, the union would get more money.

    It would be in the union’s interest not to prolong the period of suspension of someone who is eventually going to get fired. And also to maximize the number of short suspensions.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  97. rocean wrote:

    Why do these incidents always bring out the deranged cop haters? They seem to be given a free hand to say the most absurd things about the police. It seems to me, that 3 of the 4 Cops were just “following orders”. Chauvin was the senior policeman and told everyone he had everything under control. So they deferred to him.

    We’ve already determined that ‘just following orders’ is not a valid excuse under the law if the orders are illegal. I would have thought that, if any of the other officers thought that Officer Chauvin’s methods were excessive, one of them would have at least warned him that things were getting out of hand.

    I can’t see this as anything other than very poor judgement; to believe otherwise is to believe that they wanted to kill Mr Floyd, and that would be a pretty stupid decision.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  98. rocean wrote:

    Maybe you can explain why Shanghai, Seoul, Rome, Bombay and Tokyo are all “packed together” and have no problems of this kind.

    This is a photo I took near the Arch of Constantine, on June 20, 2016. It might just explain why there are fewer problems in Rome.

    The cities you mentioned are all more homogeneous than American cities, but it’s also true that the police will be obeyed in all of those places.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  99. I would have thought that, if any of the other officers thought that Officer Chauvin’s methods were excessive, one of them would have at least warned him that things were getting out of hand.

    I find this much more disturbing than the idea there was just one psycho cop. Someone would have stepped up in a good team of professionals. You don’t even need a day of training to know this was totally unnecessary. He was in handcuffs, there were four of them, and all of those guys had a duty to keep that man safe.

    Dustin (d59cff)

  100. Mr nevi wrote:

    For most blacks it’s a lot harder to take advantage of those opportunities than it is for whites. There’s a whole bunch of factors that contribute to that. Some can be blamed on black culture, but not all. A lot of those factors are the result of so many blacks being poor. But the reason so many blacks are poor is because of past racism.

    Though it has been narrowing, the black high school dropout rate is higher, and has been much higher, than that for whites. Those are decisions taken individually, for a myriad of reasons, but such will always have an impact on aggregate economic success.

    Then you factor in the black crime rate; black males commit crimes at significantly higher rates than white males, and felony convictions and time in prison are absolute career killers. Hey, I grew up poor, too, but that didn’t somehow force me to commit felonies. Racism does not force someone to commit felonies.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  101. @105, Dana you can see see at least one officer keeping the crowd away while Chavin continues to press his knee into Floyd’s neck. several bystanders point out that Floyd isn’t breathing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksEJR9EPQ8

    Time123 (53ef45)

  102. Narciso wrote:

    Rush probably means it, as does trump, but they dont accept his goodwill just a sign of weakness, the cities where ‘handsoff’ policing is practiced is where thd worst disturbances are. Of course it doesnt help when the marxist mayor in gotham openly shows his contempt for law enforcement,

    You ought to see foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia. The good citizens of the City of Brotherly Love elected a very leftist Democrat, Jim Kenney, to be mayor, and then followed up by electing George Doros-backed Larry Krasner as district attorney. Mr Krasner ran on an anti-police platform, and promised not to prosecute small-time offenses.

    Then, to top it all off, Mr Kenney appointed the appropriately-named Danielle Outlaw to be police commissioner. Miss Outlaw had been a high-ranking police official in Oakland, and then police chief in Portland, Oregon. She brought her lax and liberal attitude to Philly, and the city had the perfect trifecta of lax law enforcement.

    In 2019, Philadelphia had 356 murders, the highest since 2007, just before Mayor Michael Nutter — a Democrat, but not a bad one — and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey started slowly cleaning up the city. And so far this year, the city has had 163 murders, a 21% increase over the same day last year.

    Compare that with New York, which has 318 murders in 2019, three dozen fewer than Philly, despite having 5¼ times Philadelphia’s population.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  103. Dana from Kentucky @106

    What you cite is among the things I meant when I referred to things that blacks need to work on themselves.

    Kishnevi (eb30e0)

  104. his is a photo I took near the Arch of Constantine, on June 20, 2016. It might just explain why there are fewer problems in Rome.

    Given how Italians drive, that’s the sort of traffic cop they need there.

    Kishnevi (eb30e0)

  105. DRJ wrote:

    In small cities, police violence is rare and they see more everyday folks. However, some people and police get hurt because small town police training and experience only takes you so far to prepare for riots, etc. Maybe there could be some kind of big-small police exchange where both sides could benefit?

    Small towns also have lower rates of crime for most things, because everybody knows everybody else. When I lived in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, the county went eight years between murders, even though most people had firearms.

    But there is one huge problem there: drugs. The drug problem is just plain out-of control, because not only does everybody know everyone else, but the druggies know the police’s schedules. It wouldn’t surprise me if the local cops look the other way when it comes to drugs, but I have no first hand knowledge of that.

    There was one incident that the cops couldn’t ignore. On the wall of a house right across from where we went to church, someone spray-painted “Buy your crack here.” That place got cleaned up fast.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  106. I can’t see this as anything other than very poor judgement; to believe otherwise is to believe that they wanted to kill Mr Floyd, and that would be a pretty stupid decision.

    I don’t think this is the case, and I think a cop with 18 prior complaints against him doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. I actually think that Chauvin wanted to mess someone up that night. And he had the perfect opportunity to do so. I believe that had George Floyd been white, this wouldn’t have happened. What’s worse, he seemed to know that the other cops present would acquiesce to his decisions. God knows why. I think he knew they would not intervene, even when he was going against protocol, and even when the victim had become non-responsive. It doesn’t matter that he was the senior office. They knew what was happening was wrong. They did nothing. He knew that’s how they would react. How else do you explain intentionally keeping a knee pressed on the back of the neck for 2 minutes and 53 seconds after the victim was non-repsonsive?

    Dana (0feb77)

  107. Mr nevi wrote:

    Given how Italians drive, that’s the sort of traffic cop they need there.

    I have driven in Italy, and you are absotively, posilutely right.

    In Firenze (Florence), while there is a painted divider between the opposite lanes, the interior lanes are not marked, and drivers just make their own. You can have three lanes of traffic going one way, and then it all bottlenecks down to one when you get to the intersection or traffic circle.

    On the country roads in Tuscany, something Americans take for granted, shoulders being mowed, doesn’t happen. Thus, you can come up to an intersection, but not be able to see crossing traffic well because the roadside grass is six feet high!

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  108. The much better-looking Dana wrote:

    I can’t see this as anything other than very poor judgement; to believe otherwise is to believe that they wanted to kill Mr Floyd, and that would be a pretty stupid decision.

    I don’t think this is the case, and I think a cop with 18 prior complaints against him doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. I actually think that Chauvin wanted to mess someone up that night.

    Did he? Who knows? But it would have been pretty stupid of him to deliberately do something that would get him fired and criminally charged.

    The charge against Mr Chauvin is third-degree murder, one in which there was no discerned intent to kill, but the perpetrator “without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.” The district attorney, or whatever he is called there, obviously did not believe that he could prove second degree murder, which requires an intent to kill.

    Not that it matters. The sentence is a maximum of 25 years, and Derek Chauvin is already 44 years old. It’s difficult to imagine that, if convicted, he’ll get much less than the maximum, meaning that he won’t get out of prison until he’s elderly . . . if a Minneapolis police officer can even survive that long in the state pen.

    The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316)

  109. Dana in Kentucky:

    The charge against Chauvin could be upgraded:

    First, the lead charge itself — third-degree murder — is light, given the facts. Third-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of 25 years, and requires proof that the defendant committed an act “eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.” In other words, prosecutors must show that Chauvin acted recklessly and dangerously, without necessarily intending to kill Floyd.

    But prosecutors could have charged (and still could eventually charge) Chauvin with more serious second-degree murder, which carries a potential 40-year sentence and requires proof that the defendant intentionally killed the victim, without premeditation. The evidence seems sufficient to support such a charge — particularly given the astonishing length of time that Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck (more on this below). But prosecutors sometimes tend to be conservative in initial charges; keep an eye on whether they add the more serious second-degree charge as the case progresses.

    Dana (0feb77)

  110. 102. The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/2/2020 @ 1:25 pm

    I would have thought that, if any of the other officers thought that Officer Chauvin’s methods were excessive, one of them would have at least warned him that things were getting out of hand.

    I think one of them, Thomas K. Lane, gently, and diffidently, tried to suggest that. But Derek Chauvin brushed that aside.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8370537/Minneapolis-police-officer-Derek-Chavin-taken-custody.html

    Lane then suggests rolling Floyd onto his side but Chauvin says ‘No, staying put where we got him’.

    ‘Officer Lane said, ‘I am worried about excited delirium or whatever.’ The defendant said , ‘That’s why we have him on his stomach.’

    You;d think he was aide at a nursing home suggesting that maybe they miht be infecting someone if they put them together.

    Derek Chauvin, by the way, was fired the next day.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  111. None of the three officers moved from their positions,’ the report adds.

    Floyd then stops moving at 8:24:24 and at 8:25:31 he appears to stop breathing and speaking, it notes.

    Lane again suggests rolling Floyd onto his side but none of the cops move position. Kueng checked his right wrist for a pulse and said ‘I couldn’t find one’ but all the officers maintained their position, the report adds.

    Chauvin finally moved his knee from Floyd’s neck at 8:27:24 and he was taken away in an ambulance, 8 minutes and 46 seconds after he first held it on his neck and two minutes and 53 seconds after Floyd became unresponsive, the complaint states.

    Sammy Finkelman (fd3539)

  112. To get rid of it I think we need to work at getting rid of as much of those factors as we can. Some of them are intertwined. Some of those factors will only disappear when black culture decides to get rid of self-harming behaviors. But some of them everyone has to work on together.

    Well said.

    I just got an email from my high school on recent events, and they quoted James Baldwin:

    Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

    Dave (1bb933)


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