Police shooting stirs chants, rage as Charlotte officials meet

[FrodosPet]

Police shooting stirs chants, rage as Charlotte officials meet

Citizens shouted, heckled and demanded resignations Monday night in an emotional outpouring over last week’s killing of a black man and the initial refusal to release of police video of the fatal encounter.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/police-killing-stirs-chants-rage-as-charlotte-officials-meet/

By Steve Harrison, The Charlotte Observer (TNS) | Updated September 26, 2016 at 8:16 pm

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A furious crowd criticized and often shouted down the Charlotte City Council on Monday night, calling for resignations across the city and chanting, “Hands Down! Shoot Back!” and “No Justice, No Peace!”

Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, who allowed people to speak for two hours, repeatedly had to stop the meeting, pleading for quiet. Sometimes the crowd quieted to allow people to speak. At other times, her requests were met with heckles and chants for justice.

~ snip ~

After a 10-year-old, Taje Gaddy, spoke about his fear of the police, the crowd erupted to support him. When Roberts asked for quiet, people in the crowd shouted back at her, asking “Where are your tears?”

~ snip ~

[maxon23]

1. Police shooting stirs chants, rage as Charlotte officials meet

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[FrodosPet]

3. People are getting tired of being targets in a shooting gallery

IDK if the shooting in Charlotte was a legitimate use of force. But there are SO MANY cases of murder by cop, how can people not be upset, saddened, and frightened?

[Travis_0004]

5. Then protest those shootings

Who is going to resign?

How about they do a full inveatigation and go from there.

[Egnever]

2. Not sure how I feel about this

On one hand I think these discussions are way over due. On the other hand this shooting was clearly justified.

I't has to be better that the discussions are taking place right?

[Uponthegears]

4. We've got a group

Who spend,all there time finding ways to defend cops who gun down people of color. They're focus is ALWAYS on whether the cop should be punished and NEVER on whether another black man needed to die. That's the problem with the cop-centered analysis.

The fact is that in every single one of the recent killings of a person of color there was something a cop could have done that would have saved a human life and that is EVEN IF WE BELIEVE EVERY WORD THAT COMES OUT OF THE COPS' MOUTHS. Look at Michael Brown . . . Wilson didn't have to hassle them for not walking on the sidewalk. He didn't have to call them over to lecture them. Whether folks want to admit it, he wouldn't have done it if they were white. It was just no big deal. Wilson had the discretion to leave it alone.

Look at Scott. ACCORDING TO THE COPS he's a guy sitting in a car with a gun (which at that point could have been legal) smoking a blunt. They had other stuff to do. He wasn't hurting anyone. Why even call it in? How many times would a cop look away when they were in the middle of something else and the guy was white? You know the answer. These are 100% cop decisions and time and time again they initiate a police contact.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why?

[Crepuscular]

6. Why?

Why approach a guy smoking a blunt with an unholstered gun that is visible? Because that's what cops get paid to do. I want the cops in my neighborhood to pursue criminal activity when they observe it, not to turn a blind eye. Whether the perp is Black, White, Latino or green makes no difference, I don't believe that society is well served by ignoring the criminal combination of drugs and guns, particularly when observed close to a bus stop when kids are about to get off the bus.

Kind of amazing that anyone would continue to support Scott's actions after all of the facts have come to light.

[uponit7771]

10. There was no evidence that a blunt was being smoked, that's an alt-right meme that should

... not be proffered here.

They know Scott rolling a cig isn't against the law

[Uponthegears]

12. See #11

[Lee-Lee]

9. "Have you ever stopped to wonder why?"

Did you know that around 80% of firearm homicides are drug/gang related?

Quite literally targeting exactly that combination of drugs/gun is one of the most effective ways the police can reduce firearm crime and murders in a city.

The idea that they should have just turned a blind eye to it is lunacy.

Especially given the fact that they had decided to give him a pass on just smoking the blunt and did not act until they saw the gun- if they were really out to hassle him they would have started as soon as they saw the blunt and had a legal reason. The fact that they ignored that and didn't act until they saw the gun too throws your whole theory they were just out to get him out the window.

[Uponthegears]

11. So here we are in a relatively quiet place

where we can be serious about institutional racism and why it continues to have a major influence on even self-proclaimed Democrats.

Because I continue to have a generous spirit, I am going to pass over your attempt to misuse statistics to support an argument that is, at its heart, deeply disturbing, except to say that "Do you know that less than .1% of firearm possessions by black males who use marijuana on a regular basis result in gun violence, mush less a firearm homicide? A black man smoking a blunt with a gun on the seat next to him is not, absent other circumstances indicating possible more serious criminal conduct, a dangerous scenario. Such a claim has no basis other than in racial bias.

Targeting every armed black male who smokes a blunt in their car (ASSUMING THAT REALLY HAPPENED HERE) doesn't reduce murders one whit. In fact, the targeting of even drug DEALERS who use weapons has been profoundly INEFFECTIVE in reducing violent crime/gun homicides, regardless of whether it may have INEFFECTIVELY reduced DRUG-related crimes in some places (by incarcerating and disenfranchising a huge percentage of young black males by placing them on the new plantation called the federal prison system). If your outrageous claim were true, Chicago would be the safest place on earth.

But let's get to the important part. When you suggest that the cops here, or Wilson in Ferguson, had some evil intent, you actually minimize the extent of institutional racism. What they have are laws created by racist legislatures for the very purpose of giving them almost unlimited discretion to initiate a police contact. EVERYTHING is a criminal violation. Heck, talking back to your teacher is a criminal violation in North Carolina as a young black girl in North Carolina who had just lost her mother found out as she was brutalized for "resisting arrest." What we have are cops who believe, just like you and just like the vast majority of white people (can you say "Broken Window Policing?), that there is a substantial likelihood that black males involved in even minor illegal activity (selling untaxed cigarettes, walking in the street, smoking a blunt while armed, etc. are involved in more serious criminal activity). What we have are cops who have been unleashed by the Supreme Court ruling permitting it, and then trained to use contacts (ostensibly for the purpose of investigating one this limitless body of minor crimes) to conduct what would otherwise be a blatantly unconstitutional "investigation" of their racist pre-judgment/belief that all black males who commit even minor offenses are probably committing some more serious crime.

Not surprisingly, the more police contacts you have, the more times you have something bad happen. Because cops are trained to use minor crimes as an excuse to investigate crimes which they "believe" to be occurring but lack a reasonable articulable suspicion, because their beliefs are, like most of our society, racist, and because everyone commits minor crimes - thus providing cops with unlimited discretion to stop anyone they want - those contacts overwhelmingly involve black males and other people of color.

This is not a racist cop problem . . . it's a racist society problem.

[Flyboy_451]

7. "hands down! Shoot back!" Really?

This is the message someone wants to send?

Let's think about that for just a second. African Americans make up about 13% of the population. Gun ownership among them is estimated at between 15 and 20%. Voicing that idea, not to mention actually engaging in it, carries a high probability of igniting a race war. Anyone care to guess how that turns out?

Here's my theory. It will NOT be beneficial to the black population. Quite the contrary, it will be a slaughter. The moment violence moves from the black neighborhoods, inner cities and protest areas and into neighborhoods of a lighter color, every racist with a gun is going to see it as a hunting license. And don't think that only racists will act. Violence is never contained to only the people with an active interest in the conflict. Make no mistake. You will not choose which side of the conflict you side with based on your views or sympathies. It WILL be decided solely by skin color, without your consent. Fear will drive people to the point that nobody is safe outside of "their" neighborhood.

Black people will be outnumbered, outgunned, and poorly prepared to deal with such a battle. Systemic change does not take place overnight. If this becomes the way that people want to have a conversation about police abuse, we better all prepare for very scary times. It won't be pretty. It won't be civil. It won't be a positive turning point. It will be ugly and very bloody.

By all means, push the agenda of change, keep up the pressure to be at the table to discuss change, make your voices heard, but with all that said, do so intelligently. A call to violence will certainly end in violence.

JW

[FrodosPet]

8. People are scared and frustrated seeing their sons and daughters, their siblings, dying

We have to do a better job of not being a murderous police state.

The Charlotte shooting is one that is hard to say was either justified or not. I suspect they may have had options, but I do believe that he did have a gun, and that it was not a "drop gun".

OTOH, the shooting in Tulsa was clear. The shooting of the motorcyclist in DC was clear. So many other cases are clearly murder, or if you want to be technical, voluntary manslaughter.