Elijah John wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:47 pm
Mithrae wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:17 am
These are a few of the more noteworthy extra-judicial killings of black people by police. Presumably if these were "just a few bad apples" there would actually be some kind of judicial consequence for the killings.
So how does that address the OP? Those are a few bad apple cops.
You haven't substantiated that claim. However regrettable, it's not all that surprising if someone manages to become a cop despite being the kind of person, somewhere deep inside, who would choke an unarmed man until his heart stops beating. That's a "bad apple." But for incidents like that to pass by without serious consequence or punishment, again and again and again, is
extremely surprising unless it's more than just a few bad apples.
Elijah John wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:47 pm
How in the world does that justify the systemic disrespect and violence against police?
Not for the first time your biases are showing; when it's cops killing black people you assume that it's a few bad apples, but when it's people advocating that black lives matter suddenly it's "systemic disrespect and violence." Why not use the same rhetoric in both cases, or better yet why not try to avoid
both downplaying killing of black people and exaggerating violence against police?
Elijah John wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:47 pm
How in the world does that justify escalation by resisting
lawful arrests? (the ones you did not list)
If a person is innocent of any crime - and most of us in civilized society do generally uphold a presumption of innocence - the question should be under what circumstances (if any) does an agent of the state gain the right to forcefully restrain, humiliate and severely inconvenience them with the very real associated risks of injury, trauma, wrongful conviction and even death? Most of us probably acknowledge that there are
some circumstances in which warrantless on-the-spot arrests are necessary, and even in some cases that extreme measures be taken to restrain the arrestee; granting police the power to decide if and when those (very rare) circumstances apply is an enormous investment of trust, and for the system to keep working peacefully that trust needs to be seen and acknowledged as well-deserved. On the other hand, it really wouldn't be terribly surprising if that trust and power went to their heads for a significant fraction of cops, and absent careful oversight ended up being abused far more than necessary or appropriate. "Lawful arrests" is a nice phrase which doesn't exactly carry a lot of weight when shooting a twelve year old boy with a toy gun is considered a lawful killing!
"Resisting arrest" in the form of running away, refusing to kiss the pavement, verbally protesting or requesting an explanation/identification are not 'escalation' by any stretch of the imagination. Even being riled up enough to shove or hit someone is not a capital crime. So yes, there are probably hundreds of other examples of wrongful killing we could add to the list. The rate at which American cops kill American civilians is really quite shocking compared to other countries:
USFPS1.jpg
Does that look like the work of "a few bad apples" to you? An excess of three killings per million citizens above Canada and Australia* would be a thousand per year; and with that many interactions resulting in apparently needless deaths, one dreads to imagine how many involve 'merely' harassment, wrongful arrest, excessive force or brutality!
* Edit: Graph is from some research in 2016; without checking I'm not sure exactly what years the data are from, but looking at some more recent data suggests that while the American rate remains around 3.4 per million (33.5 per ten million) and Germany etc. around 0.13 per million, Canada and Australia have shifted worryingly in the American direction (though still with far lower rates).