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Three police officers shot dead in Dallas.

153 replies

DoctorTwo · 08/07/2016 05:15

BBC link Blimey. I'm shocked but not really surprised as American police shot (apparently) 506 people to death in 2015, and another two this week.

But hey, good guys with guns will always stop bad people with guns killing good people, if the NRA are to be believed...

OP posts:
LostQueen · 08/07/2016 14:14

"Even with videotaped evidence of police destroying black people, many freedom-loving Americans remain unconvinced of a systematic problem"- Jesse Williams.

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 14:17

Damn right I'm unconvinced by someone making an unsubstantiated claim. The minute you show me videotaped evidence of police officers murdering black people, I'll reconsider.

LostQueen · 08/07/2016 14:19

Clearly, you did not watch the videos of the murders of Alton Stirling and Philando Castile. If you can watch those videos and still justify what happened to them at them, you have zero moral compass. If you think that Black people in America are as safe from the Police as white people are then you are blind to the reality. If you can offer no compassion and cannot offer any solutions rather than your childish tit-for-tat, he said she said rhetoric, then why bother saying anything at all.

Beammeup11 · 08/07/2016 14:22

Well said Lostqueen. The statistics speak for themselves. Black men are being murdered by the Police.

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 14:22

LostQueen I'm not being childish, I'm asking you to substantiate the claims you're making. I've only seen a handful of videos of police officers shooting black people and they were justified. I've not seen footage of an officer committing murder so of course I can't agree with what you say at the moment. I'm not saying that you are wrong, just that I can't agree with what you say unless you substantiate it with something. Point me in the direction of the videos that you feel show a black person being murdered.

MistressChalk · 08/07/2016 14:25

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShootingoffWalterScott

Northernlurker · 08/07/2016 14:26

I've watched the Castile footage. Apart from the clear horror of it - a woman sitting beside her partner who is dead or dying having been shot in his car- the worst part for me is that she calls the police officer 'sir' throughout. I wouldn't be calling anybody 'sir' in those circumstances but then I'm not a black American who knows I'm much more likely to be shot for driving whilst black or walking whilst black than my white equivalent. I don't think the majority of uk citizens can ever properly comprehend how totally fucked up the USA is.

LookAtMeGo · 08/07/2016 14:29

Chilledwarmth I really do hope you are a troll. Or just a lunatic.

Substantiated here for you.

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 14:31

Thanks Chalk. In my opinion that shooting would be murder. It seems the justification he gave for the shooting was the suspect grabbing for his Taser but the video of that incident shows he didn't get the Taser and even if he had grabbed for it, he was running away so it wasn't a threat any more.

LookAtMeGo · 08/07/2016 14:31

Ahh!

You're American aren't you?Angry

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 14:34

LookAtMeGo that link you gave me doesn't substantiate anything about murder. It proves our cops shoot more people than other countries but that's about it. This Castile footage does it show the shooting and the immediate moments before it?

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 14:35

Penny drops? Of course I'm American.

MistressChalk · 08/07/2016 14:36

mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/

LookAtMeGo · 08/07/2016 14:36

Yes it makes sense now.

We're not interested in your lunatic views. We don't like guns in this country.

LookAtMeGo · 08/07/2016 14:38

Thanks mistress. He will just have more tosh to spout to justify it though Hmm

LostQueen · 08/07/2016 14:40

What is you don't understand?

Read the link MistressChalk just posted. Watch the footage of Alton Stirling. Those men were murdered. The images tell anybody with an ounce of sense that. I am not here to prove a damn thing to you, the facts substantiate themselves.

I didn't ask you to agree with me, I don't need your approval to validate what the majority of us understand. It's all well and good you asking me to "point you in the direction of videos" that back up what I'm saying when you clearly haven't conducted any adequate research to back what you are saying yourself.

I had a white woman who is the mother to a mixed race 13 year old boy say that they cannot go back home to live in the states where they are from because it is not safe for her son. Not because of crime or the area they live in, simply because mothers cannot be 100% sure that their children will come home every day should they happen to encounter a police officer. How anybody can be so blind to this is unreal to me. The default position of white americans does not need to be one of defence when issues like this are discussed. I have seen countless white americans standing up for this cause because it is not about white vs black it is about what is RIGHT and what is WRONG. The default position needs to be one of understanding and if that is not your position because you do not understand it, say NOTHING.

OfficiallyUnofficial · 08/07/2016 14:50

Lost I disagree that saying "Why" is seeking justification. Saying "Why" is seeking a solution. Because as you rightly say it happens time and time again. There is outrage and horror and half arsed investigations/apologies and nothing changes.

So ask "Why" and if the answer is "no one ever gets prosecuted". Then they should be fixing that.

If it's "gun laws" then address them

If it's "training" then re-train.

If it's "racist language in the force goes unpunished" then challenge it.

I do realise as I type that, and as I said before, that this is a hypothetical. The US won't change until it destroys itself 😓

Chilled did you see the video of the man this week pinned to the floor safely and THEN the officer shot him? I'd say that was pretty unjustified.

And as for our gun laws, I don't think it's an issue to challenge them, there should be better MH and extremist views screening for firearms licenses. I do think it's an issue to compare them in any way to the US issues. We've had, what 3 serious incidents in the last decade? All of them with low numbers. It's hard to go totally postal with a shotgun. Not so hard with a flipping AK7! Jo was such an unusual incident it was headline news, in the US it would be just another day.

OfficiallyUnofficial · 08/07/2016 14:54

Northern that really upset me too. Asking them if her partner was dead whilst affording them that respect? Terrifying.

LostQueen · 08/07/2016 14:58

Apologies Officially I misunderstood your other post so thanks for clarifying. I thought you meant Why in the sense that people so often justify the acts of these officers by asking what the person had done to deserve it.

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 14:59

LookAtMeGo believe me, from the backlash when I posted in the preppers board that I carry a Glock every day, I'm very aware that the people on mumsnet are generally very anti gun. You can keep being abusive towards me if you want but all I'm interested in is if you can substantiate the claims you made. You say that you aren't here to prove anything to me. That's fine, you don't have to, but you do understand that's sort of the way it works when you make claims such as the ones you have? You're saying that American police forces are, on an institutional level, murdering black people. I'm just asking if you can substantiate that.

Despite you treating me like I'm the enemy for some reason, I'm not against you, and I'm not saying your claims are wrong. I'm just saying that you can't point to statistics of more black people being killed than white people and claim that proves institutional murder. And also you can't link to the footage of one officer murdering a black person (yes I agreed it was murder and conceded that point) as being institutional. That was one officer murdering a man, what about the thousands of officers who didn't and have never murdered anyone?

LostQueen · 08/07/2016 15:02

Sadly though, I think the answer is "no one ever gets prosecuted". Can't tackle the root of the problem until that layer is removed and people start to be brought to account. People do what they know they can get away with.

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 15:03

OfficiallyUnofficial no I didn't see it. That's the point, so many people are saying "murder" but then won't substantiate it with anything, then get angry and call me a "lunatic" for refusing to call an incident murder even though I haven't been able to watch it for myself and decide. From what you are describing someone was safely restrained and then shot. That seems like murder to me.

OfficiallyUnofficial · 08/07/2016 15:11

Agree Lost.

chilledwarmth · 08/07/2016 15:12

LostQueen one of the ideas that people have come up with to address the problem of people getting away with stuff is little cameras which are worn on the officers body. What do you think of them?

UmbongoUnchained · 08/07/2016 15:13

Chilledwarmth
It's people like you that make America the absolute laughing stock of the world. Your police force is a joke. Your gun laws are a joke. And a majority of your citizens are a joke by thinking that carrying guns will HELP WITH THE FUCKING GUN PROBLEM.