Friday, June 14, 2019

UPDATED: Meanwhile, In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of the Brave


You can read details of this sordid incident here as well as here.

UPDATE: Here is the story from the perspective of the victimized Black family:
"A police officer, we don't know who he is, a guy, random guy came up to the door banging on the window with a gun, says he's going to shoot us in our face, telling us to get out of the car. He hasn't alerted us that we're being pulled over anything," Ames said.

"If you look at the video pretty good I'm snatched out the car and I fly back and that's when he grabs me out the car.

My hands were up the whole time," Ames said. "It was just a very scary situation I never thought I'd be in. Traumatizing for me and my daughters," said Aesha Harper, the girls' mother.

6 comments:

  1. Madness in a mad country with a mad president.

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    1. I am hard-pressed to think of anything positive these days about "the greatest country on earth," Owen.

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  2. I watched this earlier this morning so I am not processing it at first glance.

    Blink. Blink. Blink.

    That this is considered acceptable behaviour from an Officer of the Law ... anywhere is incomprehensible to me.

    It is to weep.

    j a m e s

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    1. Will these officers be allowed to keep their jobs, James? The answer to that question will show us the values this force purports to hold. Already there has been an attempt at justifying this indefensible behaviour, with one of the officers claiming he believed the pregnant woman was holding a gun. That, I believe, is just another version of the universal excuse used to justify police wrongdoing: fear for one's life.

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    2. I will try to play the Devil's advocate here Lorne.

      And pardon me, I do not mind if you censor this, or decide not to publish it but ...

      The only justification I can find for this is . . . the Police Officers ARE scared shitless?

      That is severe paranoia in my view, not my field I know but ... paranoia, again not my field, I suspect is extremely infectious and rapidly spreading when intense situations escalate.

      The Sword of Damocles may not be a legal defense ... nor do I think this behavior can be countenanced but as an observer these incidents are no longer statistical outliers I would wager.

      Blink ... blink . . . blink?

      j a m e s

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    3. My interpretation of the event, James, based on what the video shows, is that this fear/paranoia is a reflection of the deep racism that pervades American society. While no doubt the police come across bad actors all the time, the assumption that they are in danger seems to me directly related to the skin colour of the 'suspects'. Otherwise, to respond thus to a woman with kids in the car is hard to fathom.

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