You Have Got To Be Kidding!

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2020/06/05/brighton-council-calls-for-a-minutes-silence-for-george-floyd/
1 third green 1 third red, what a surprise! Why do the left love criminals so much?

[retrocop]

Shoota
Love the variation on the Thin Blue Line emblem. Sourced from the usual place ?

[jim360]

It is also possible that there are multiple things wrong with policing in the US. For example, the natural deference to police seems to give some a sense of entitlement and immunity -- or, put another way, some police abuse their power. A good deal of progress could be made simply by acknowledging that fact. A racist police force would be somewhat less of an issue if there were consequences for abuses of authority.

[ToraToraTora]

so not all 17000 were black, how many of the white ones caused rioting and general destruction?

[jim360]

A more pertinent question is why 17,000 people have died at the hands of police in the US in the last 11 years when in the UK the equivalent figure is less than 30. You can attempt to strip away racism if you wish but all that does is reveal a different problem.

[jim360]

// ... how many of the white ones caused rioting and general destruction? //

Quite a few, since those would include most of the school shooters.

[Deskdiary]

The more pertinent question Jim is why do people assume this was a killing fuelled by racism?

The only person who knows is the copper who killed him; and he aint going to admit that.

[retrocop]

//I stood between a black lad and a bunch of inebriated right wing types.
I knelt on a pavement giving CPR to a black lad who had been stabbed.
You cannot know how angry that statement has made me feel. //

Good work shoota. I wonder how many other black kids who have been stabbed by their gangland oppos have survived serious stabbing by white officers from all Emergency Services stepping in quickly and giving CPR. A fact conveniently forgotten and ignored. Any one in today's environment poses a health risk to themselves by selflessly performing CPR on anyone of whatever colour. SOP now. Even Mark Duggan was given CPR by police after he was shot.

[Gromit]

The minute silence is not compulsory. If you don't want to do it, just stay in doors and don’t do it. If someone else wants to do it, that is up to them. It is not banging pans and letting off fireworks, which is anti-social - it is deafening silence.
Why people have to get hysterical about other people joining a cause is beyond me. If you don’t like it, ignore it, because people are not breaking any laws by being silent for a minute.

[retrocop]

//A more pertinent question is why 17,000 people have died at the hands of police in the US in the last 11 years when in the UK the equivalent figure is less than 30. //


I will answer your dilemma.More guns freely available to criminals who are ready to use those guns against police officers who attend the scenes of the crime. The criminals sometimes invent an emergency and wait in ambush to shoot the police. It's just fun and the U.S. police defend themselves. It's catching on up North . Two WPCs gunned down by a hoax disturbance call and a hand grenade thrown for good measure.
I am sure you will see Officer Chauvin approach Floyd's car and draw his firearm until he saw Floyds hands on the dashboard and satisfied himself he was no threat. He immediately reholstered his firearrm once satisfied. Why take a risk particularly as Floyd has a record of armed robbery?

[ToraToraTora]

will you be observing it gromit?

[Gromit]

TTT,
No I won’t be observing a minute silent for George Floyd.
I won’t be observing any silly Black Lives Matter bandwagon jumping stunts.

[david small]

My cold dead hand will have two fingers pointing upwards.

[royfromaus]

jim360
Disproportionately so.



There are many 'Disproportionately so's' with African Americans, Jim
Many you would never mention.

[jim360]

// More guns freely available to criminals who are ready to use those guns against police officers who attend the scenes of the crime. //

I'd suggest that this serves to expose the folly of the 2nd Amendment.

// I am sure you will see Officer Chauvin approach Floyd's car and draw his firearm until he saw Floyds hands on the dashboard and satisfied himself he was no threat. //

The problem with this is that, to the best of my knowledge, Chauvin arrived on the scene quite late. By the time he was there Floyd had already left his car and was being escorted to a police car. Maybe it was another officer. But in any case this is still a problem. Point a gun at someone and they would understandably panic, no? It seems to place a high burden on the public if they are expected to control their innate instincts to flee and, if they startle, the police officer would be entitled to shoot them dead.

This in itself then is part of the problem: how quickly police seem to jump to the final sanction. It is wrong either to regard holding a gun at a suspect (NB, a suspect, not a criminal) as the starting point, or to have arrived at a society where that *is* justified.

[New Judge]

I don’t want to get too bogged down in this nonsense. It’s clear that the lockdown has given people in this country too much time on their hands. Sadly, interactions between the police and the public often end up with injuries or sometimes even death - the victims being both police and public, and the participants of all races. Strangely most of the people I know (of all races) who manage to behave themselves have little or no interaction with the police. However, there are a couple of presumptions here which must not go without comment:

//When Chauvin restrained Floyd in the act of arresting him, and Floyd ended up dead, Chauvin became a criminal too.//

Police in all countries that I know of have the power to restrain people they are attempting to arrest (the clue is in “arrest”). The fact that Floyd ended up dead does not necessarily make the arresting officer a criminal. That’s a matter for the courts.

//And if they end up dead needlessly then the police are also committing a crime.//

See above.

The automatic assumption that if a person dies as a result of police action they have necessarily been killed unlawfully is tedious.

[10ClarionSt]

There will be a minutes silence tonight at 9pm on the Global Radio Network which I believe includes the stations that play golden oldies. The golden oldies I've heard though have lost a lot of their spakle for me. Anyway, just sayin'. yer know?

[jim360]

I'll accept that, NJ, although in this case the circumstances point very clearly to a crime being committed. Floyd was "restrained" with a knee on his neck, and two other officers on top of him, for almost nine minutes, which is approximately 8 and a half minutes longer than reasonable force would justify. Passers-by, and even one of the police involved, asked Chauvin to let up. Chauvin did not.

The 17,000 figure I mentioned earlier (since 2009) presumably includes many examples where the use of force was justified, as it makes no distinction between cases such as Floyd's and cases where the police officer was acting in clear self-defence. In that case, as I said, there are still potentially issues to address. The comparison between the UK, say, and the US shows that there is a vastly greater proportion of interactions with the police that end up with somebody dying than could be "reasonably" expected -- and even this assumes that the police in the UK are *always* right to act the way they do, which is demonstrably false (Jean Charles de Menezes springs to mind).

In a narrow sense the role of police is to protect the community ensure that criminals are, as far as possible, able to face Justice. It is clear that if a suspect ends up dead then it is in some sense a failure, as they will then never be able to face Justice. Each death, at the very least, deserves to be seriously and impartially investigated, and the police held to the highest of standards. In this case it is clear that Chauvin failed in his duty as a police officer and, for that matter, as a human being.

[Togo]

//and, for that matter, as a human being.//

Bless. Pass the sick bag Alice.

[Togo]

I bet you stamped your feet and hugged yaself as you said it as well.

[Old_Geezer]

What are these green and red lives ? Do they matter ?