Powell Shooting

[kingjason]

Look up what happened when Georgia (the country) fired all of its police force. All of them, down to the traffic cops.

Crime went down, things got better, and everyone was happy as could be. Food for thought as obviously the USA isn't Georgia but who knows.

While their are always examples of certain extremes to prove anyones point, the good ole USA would not go that route. While I my be wrong, I doubt it. I have read up on Georgia before.

Now don't get me wrong. There are a lot of large communities out there that would be just fine. There are millions of people that could get along just fine everyday with out police, I have no doubt about that. However there are far more in this country that would rather rape, pillage and steal, vs earn their keep.

[Cooter]

While their are always examples of certain extremes to prove anyones point, the good ole USA would not go that route. While I my be wrong, I doubt it. I have read up on Georgia before.

Now don't get me wrong. There are a lot of large communities out there that would be just fine. There are millions of people that could get along just fine everyday with out police, I have no doubt about that. However there are far more in this country that would rather rape, pillage and steal, vs earn their keep.

I've got news for ya, Hoss... there are PLENTY of good folks out there who would gladly dish out actual justice on those who rape/pillage/steal once there's nobody in blue standing in their way

[kingjason]

I've got news for ya, Hoss... there are PLENTY of good folks out there who would gladly dish out actual justice on those who rape/pillage/steal once there's nobody in blue standing in their way

LOL I was going to go into that, and oh yeah I get it. Those are the communities that would survive and thrive. There would be many that didn't and it would take a long time to balance out.

But you would be trampling on his rights sir, and no fair trail (Sarcasm). WTH!

[Cooter]

good times

[YALE]

A girl in one of my classes tried to make the assertion that Somalia was a libertarian paradise, and was a model to be emulated in America.

[svauto-erotic855]

I've got news for ya, Hoss... there are PLENTY of good folks out there who would gladly dish out actual justice on those who rape/pillage/steal once there's nobody in blue standing in their way

That day can not get here fast enough. Waiting is like waiting for Christmas as a kid except I don't have a way to count down the days.

A girl in one of my classes tried to make the assertion that Somalia was a libertarian paradise, and was a model to be emulated in America.

How well did that position hold up?

[YALE]

That day can not get here fast enough. Waiting is like waiting for Christmas as a kid except I don't have a way to count down the days.



How well did that position hold up?

Not well, all things considered.

[racrguy]

While their are always examples of certain extremes to prove anyones point, the good ole USA would not go that route. While I my be wrong, I doubt it. I have read up on Georgia before.

Now don't get me wrong. There are a lot of large communities out there that would be just fine. There are millions of people that could get along just fine everyday with out police, I have no doubt about that. However there are far more in this country that would rather rape, pillage and steal, vs earn their keep.

New York seemed to do fine when their cops went AWOL earlier this year/late last year, that is arguably one of the shittiest cities in the country.

[petyweestraw]

He came looking for trouble and found it.

[crapstang]

I was quoting the guy in the video.

You never approach or engage a hostile subject, that has a deadly force option in his hand, with anything other than deadly force. It has been proven time and time again, that 21 feet is close enough with a knife. Had he been just standing there, no problem. Two guys with lethal and one back up to go around the back of the squad, pop the hatch, and then deploy less lethal is perfectly acceptable. Even 21 feet is sketchy when we are talking about reaction times. Most of those videos, the guy that is armed knows the guys is going to attack, and they still need 21 feet. Just the fact you would think these guys had other options is crazy. I guess they could have thrown a giant net over him or something. Really, people have lost their minds defending some of these videos these days. Not all, but most are fully justified.

Ah, makes sense. That's what I get for responding 10 seconds before a final started lol. I can see the threat and justification for sure.

[kingjason]

New York seemed to do fine when their cops went AWOL earlier this year/late last year, that is arguably one of the shittiest cities in the country.

They never went AWOL, they just cut out the broken window policing theory for a while. Nice try though. There is a big difference in no police presence and police just strolling around, handling the big stuff. Also what the majority of you fine people don't understand is, it is not the police, or the chief, sheriff, etc that pushes for more enforcement, it is usually your fine city officials pushing the local head law enforcement officer to lean on his guys. I have seen it over and over again. Not all chiefs believe in this theory and some are way more community oriented, thus just taking the heat for it, and not passing it on to their guys.

http://cebcp.org/evidence-based-policing/what-works-in-policing/research-evidence-review/broken-windows-policing/

[Gasser64]

I actually find this one sad. He obviously wanted to die, it sucks that his life was so bad that it came to that point

[Cooter]

I actually find this one sad. He obviously wanted to die, it sucks that his life was so bad that it came to that point

I agree 100%

nobody won here

[kingjason]

Look up what happened when Georgia (the country) fired all of its police force. All of them, down to the traffic cops.

Crime went down, things got better, and everyone was happy as could be. Food for thought as obviously the USA isn't Georgia but who knows.

Even though there is still police presence here!


BALTIMORE — A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore’s 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city’s deadliest in 15 years.

Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.

Arrests were already declining before Freddie Gray died April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a full-on civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.

“I’m afraid to go outside,” said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.

“It’s so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside,” Perrine said. “People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They’re nowhere.”

West Baltimore residents worry they’ve been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them, leaving some neighborhoods like the Wild West without a lawman around.

“Before it was over-policing. Now there’s no police,” said Donnail “Dreads” Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. “People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren’t pulling them up like they used to.”

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers “are not holding back,” despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District.

“Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time,” Batts said.

Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes.

“What is happening, there is a lot of levels of confusion in the police organization. There are people who have pain, there are people who are hurt, there are people who are frustrated, there are people who are angry,” Batts said. “There are people, and they’ve said this to me, ‘If I get out of my car and make a stop for a reasonable suspicion that leads to probable cause but I make a mistake on it, will I be arrested?’ They pull up to a scene and another officer has done something that they don’t know, it may be illegal, will they be arrested for it? Those are things they are asking.”

Protesters said Gray’s death is emblematic of a pattern of police violence and brutality against impoverished African-Americans in Baltimore. In October, Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake invited the Justice Department to participate in a collaborative review of police policies. The fallout from Gray’s death prompted the mayor to ramp that up, and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch agreed to a more intensive probe into whether the department employs discriminatory policing, excessive force and unconstitutional searches and arrests.
Baltimore was seeing a slight rise in homicides this year even before Gray’s death April 19. But the 38 homicides so far in May is a major spike, after 22 in April, 15 in March, 13 in February and 23 in January.

With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36.

Ten of May’s homicides happened in the Western District, which has had as many homicides in the first five months of this year as it did all of last year.

Non-fatal shootings are spiking as well — 91 so far in May, 58 of them in the Western District.

The mayor said her office is “examining” the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate.

Even before Gray’s death, police were making between 25 and 28 percent fewer arrests each month than they made in the same month last year. But so far in May, arrests are down roughly 56 percent. Police booked just 1,045 people in the first 19 days of May, an average of 55 a day. In the same time period last year, police arrested 2,396 people, an average of 126 a day.

In fact, police did not make any arrests in the triple digits between April 22 and May 19, except on two occasions: On April 27, when protests gave way to rioting, police arrested 246 people. On May 2, the last day of a city-wide curfew, police booked 140 people.

At a news conference Wednesday, Rawlings-Blake said there are “a lot of reasons why we’re having a surge in violence.”


“Other cities that have experienced police officers accused or indicted of crimes, there’s a lot of distrust and a community breakdown,” Rawlings-Blake said. “The result is routinely increased violence.”

“It’s clear that the relationship between the commissioner and the rank-and-file is strained,” she added. “He’s working very hard to repair that relationship.”
Emergency response specialist Michael Greenberger cautions against directly blaming police. The founder and director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, the spike in homicides is more likely a response to Gray’s death and the rioting.

“We went through a period of such intense anger that the murder rate got out of control. I think it’s been really hard for the police to keep on top of that,” he said.

Lee disagrees. He says rival gang members are taking advantage of the police reticence to settle old scores.

“There was a shooting down the street, and the man was standing in the middle of the street with a gun, just shooting,” Lee added. “Usually, you can’t walk up and down the street drinking or smoking weed. Now, people are everywhere smoking weed, and police just ride by, look at you, and keep going. There used to be police on every corner. I don’t think they’ll be back this summer.”

Batts acknowledged that “the service we’re giving is off-target with the community as a whole” and he promised to pay special attention to the Western District.

Veronica Edmonds, a 26-year-old mother of seven in the Gilmor Homes, said she wishes the police would return, and focus on violent crime rather than minor drug offenses.

“If they focused more on criminals and left the petty stuff alone, the community would have more respect for police officers,” she said.

[Trip McNeely]

Sgt. Al Powell, of the LAPD?