Police brutality

TheConductor

Yeah, I know Chagen. I'm just saying, that this may not have anything to do with race (if it turns it does, then feel free to ignore all of this, laugh in my face, and then be offended), so maybe we should all calm down.

Chagen

When it was white cops and a black "suspect", yes. Never mind that they shot simply when he ran away. One shot? Fine.

10? These cops didn't want to stop, they wanted to kill untermenschen.

ClockworkUniverse

While I agree that it's clear they were aiming for no less than killing, there could be many reasons for it.

Nyktos

Chagen, quit it with the Godwin. Seriously.

Hatter

I wish we could live in an age when if you shoot a man, no one cares that his skin color is different from yours.

I'm absolutely agreeing with you that they should not have fired. But if they believed that he was a wanted criminal from out of state, who was armed and dangerous, it's not entirely impossible that they simply got overexcited and tried to stop him then and there instead of calling for backup and alerting other officers in the area. It's retarded, but not all retards are racists.

And even though I feel bad for the deceased - being dead sucks, after all - what innocent man runs when he's caught having not paid for a $2 ticket? I'm not saying he's guilty, but it makes me more receptive towards the police's side of the story.

Nyktos

He probably ran because he was terrified of the cops, because he was conditioned to be by the culture he grew up in, because things like this keep happening.

AXavierB

I say even if he was guilty of not paying for the ticket, using lethal force was entirely unnecessary. It's stupid to run from the police but they shouldn't think they can just point a gun at anyone who doesn't immediately yield to their authoritah.

CommandoDude

This is why cops need to always be taped.

Also, insert obligatory "Fuck da po-lice"

Hatter

Nyktos, I really don't care what "conditioning" he went through. When the police stop you, you stay fucking stopped.

BlackHumor

@Hatter: Oh ye of little empathy.

EDIT: Also, historian's fallacy.

Hatter

In law, empathy is a conflict of interest. I'm perfectly happy to empathize when my judgment isn't in danger of being clouded by my feelings.

MadassAlex

Empathy is a lot more heartfelt than your current working definition, I think. 

Hatter

Empathy is feeling what other people are feeling. I'm able to empathize quite well when I'm not analyzing something. I'm analyzing now. 

MadassAlex

I mean that empathy, but definition, requires emotional investment. Emotional investment will affect judgement. So you gotta take both or neither. 

Hatter

You lose me with that last bit. Why do you need to be emotionally invested in one of the parties involved to properly analyze a legal situation?

MadassAlex

Both posts are essentially a response to:

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I'm perfectly happy to empathize when my judgment isn't in danger of being clouded by my feelings.

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To which I'm saying that, by empathising, you have to emotionally invest and therefore are no longer capable of completely unbiased judgement. 

Hatter

Right. Which is why I don't empathize when I'm analyzing.

MadassAlex

And to follow on: if you can control empathy, then you're probably doing it wrong. 

Hatter

When I'm just reading words on a page with no context, I can absolutely control empathy. In a real life situation, when I'm looking into other peoples' faces, it's more difficult, but I can suppress it to some degree.