Yet again, it appears that black lives don't matter in the USA.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/new-proposal-provide-grand-juries-eyes?mbid=nl_120314_Borowitz&CNDID=24443642&spMailingID=7334789&spUserID=MjczNzc1MzIyOTkS1&spJobID=580411691&spReportId=NTgwNDExNjkxS0

I try not to question juries, because you never have all the evidence, but I find this very questionable. A cop used a prohibited restraining method that directly resulted in his death. How do you not get an indictment on that? Maybe you fuck up the case and don't get a guilty verdict, but to not even indict?

Mendax-stop buying into these cases as race related. That is what the police force needs you to believe so that you don't realize that it is a militarizing of the police force issue where they are gaining complete control to kill any citizen without fear of punishment. Race is a red herring to keep us all fighting with one another about it.

Police, in general, are too militaristic, but it would be very hard to argue that blacks don't suffer more than other groups because of it.

That's not what I was saying, and it is probably true, but it still isn't what should be discussed in these situations. It just distracts people from the incredible dangerous reality of what the police can now do to everyday citizens.

*incredibly

I'm through with the police. They've totally lost any shred of legitimacy they may ever have had. From here on, when I comply with them, it will be because they are armed and dangerous, not because I respect their so-called authority.

Again, you all are pissed at the Jury when you should be pissed at the LAW. Laws around this country allow police to do pretty much whatever the fuck they want in the line of duty. The jury applies these laws granting expansive powers to police and let off the police. You ring your hands at the supposedly stupid ruling of the jury when energy should be spent holding police accountable through laws limiting their power.

From what I heard the chokehold was not illegal, ie. against state law, but it was against police policy. So, this was not a manner of the police breaking the law, but he did break police policy.

"Again, you all are pissed at the Jury when you should be pissed at the LAW. Laws around this country allow police to do pretty much whatever the fuck they want in the line of duty."

It is not the law that allows the police to get away with murder; it is people. In the rare instances when police officers are actually put through any kind of legal process, the case against them is always presented half-heartedly (at best) by prosecutors who feel dependent on (or intimidated by) police political power to proceed with a real prosecution. The cases are as often as not presented in a secret grand jury proceeding to grand jurors who are overwhelmingly white and elderly. In the rare cases where an actual criminal prosecution occurs, the police inevitably have the benefit of the best defense attorney(s) in their state, the most inept prosecutor they can find in the DA's office, and the jury is deliberately to include only the most pro-police and/or stupid citizens. The police have many legal privileges we mundanes do not possess, but they are still not allowed to kill people who present no danger.

"it appears that black lives don't matter in the USA."

Au contraire - it seems that the fact that only police murders of blacks are considered newsworthy leaves me wondering if non-black lives don't matter. I can think of over a dozen non-blacks who have been murdered by the police here in Southern California over the last few years, but none of them were afforded the kind of constant national news coverage that the Michael Brown shooting got - even though every last one of them were definitely far more sympathetic victims. Why is that?

I found myself ambivalent in opinion about Ferguson.

Not here. Of the (sadly many) examples of police brutality that have come up in recent months, this one is perhaps the most egregious of all. I've seen people argue that the officer wasn't in the wrong here, and unlike with other cases where I could with enough patient reading and listening see where they were coming from (though ultimately still disagree), my skills have failed me here.

I can't believe tolstoy got 2 plus ones for that. It's crazy when white people just think the system is all against them - and media coverage of a few incidents doesn't change the fact that whites get it better than african-americans.

The numbers clearly show that people who get shot are "overwhelmingly male, heavily young, disproportionately black". Thank god that get media attention, it should.

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6051043/how-many-people-killed-police-statistics-homicide-official-black

Of course Tolstoy got +1s, SD. This website has a whole healthy contingent of white supremacists.

Speaking of shitty police, meanwhile, here in New Orleans, if you get raped and report it to the cops, they can't be bothered to even investigate it. Fucking shitstain overlords - worthless parasitical thugs

It is sad that some people are only upset about racism, and not about the police murdering hundreds or thousands of people every year.

IMHO, the Ferguson case was a legitimate case of self-defense. Attempting to disarm an officer justifies the use that officer using deadly force.

However, this Garner case is quite troubling. Department policy exists for a reason, and if the officer in question had followed department policy, Garner would still be alive. This looks like involuntary manslaughter, not murder or voluntary manslaughter (due to apparent lack of malicious thought). Regardless, the NYPD officer broke the law and went unpunished.

As for "black lives matter", that has got to be one of the dumbest slogans I've ever heard in my entire life. While I agree that black lives matter, it is an unnecessary use of the race card to draw inappropriate attention to a non-race-related issue (police militarization/police brutality). If lives mattered so much, then why doesn't the black community focus on reducing black-on-black violence? Or black abortions, for that matter? Both black-on-black violence rates and black abortion numbers make police brutality casualties seem minuscule by comparison.

@Tolstoy:

You can be upset about both. Stop being such a shitstain

Gunfighter, Tolstoy, both of you are CLUELESS AS ALL FUCKING HELL. Seriously. I don't know a nice way to say it. Black people are targeted by police. Period. It's an issue. Black people are practically criminalized in our country in 2014. Stop defending fascist racist power structures.

How was what Tolstoy said in anyway racist? He didn't even say white, he said non black.

Especially considering he specified the location of Southern California, I'd be surprised if the police killings in question weren't of Hispanics.

And in any case, even if they are white, I second Santa's question. Thucy, how is what he said racist or white supremacist? This seems like a grossly unfair characterization.

And how on Earth do you glean the idea that he's defending the "fascist racist power structure" of the police when his entire point is that people (in his view) aren't adequately concerned about police brutality?

I think you're way off-base here, man.

Anyway, my criticism of Thucy's two most recent posts aside, I find myself enthusiastically agreeing with his sentiment of being through with the police. As an entity they really aren't to be respected anymore; only feared and complied with as minimally as strictly necessary.

They see me rollin', they hatin'.

The power structures of that target black people are larger than the police. Hence, it is grossly inadequate to just consider police brutality as its own issue.

That's fine, but where in his post is he defending any of these power structures? This is a charge completely without merit.

He's asking people not to talk about them. This only serves to perpetuate them.

“I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves," Pantaleo said. "It is never my intention to harm anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. My family and I include him and his family in our prayers and I hope that they will accept my personal condolences for their loss.”

You know what, this cop is praying for the guy he choked to death i.e. he is a church goer, probably a Christian. He is a good man. If he was a Muslim in Jeddah that had choked to death a foreigner I would expect them to act in the same way, except that the murdered guy wasn't a foreigner, he was a US citizen.
WTF is happening over there? Leave the blacks alone.....