If you live in the United States, you should be disgusted with your country

[Solid Snake]

I hope protesters burn Missouri to the ground over this, in the least destructive but most dialogue-provoking manner feasible

In short: If you are a white police officer tracking down a minority suspect in this country you can do whatever the flying fuck you want, including murder, and you won't even have to go on trial for the mere possibility that you're guilty of committing a crime while doing so.

And yet conservatives will proclaim that "Racism is dead in America" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that's a good one, conservatives

(Really wish Obama had the stones and/or the political capital to make a fuss over this)

If you want to perpetrate crimes in this cesspit of a country, become a police officer, it's the easiest way to achieve exactly what you want.

[Kim]

In other recent racism news, cop shot and killed a twelve year old black boy for carrying a BB gun. Police have refered to the child as a "man" or "young man" when talking about the incident. Because black boys aren't allowed to be children because children are innocent and cops refuse to believe a black kid could ever be innocent.

Cops disgust me. All of them.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Kim

Cops disgust me. All of them.

I'm sure 'not all cops' are evil and yadda yadda blah blah blah, but I have one (white) Facebook friend who became a cop (long after I met him) and he's now like, the single biggest jerk in existence, and I keep him listed as an Acquaintance in large part because I'm fascinated by the stuff he posts.

It's like joining the police force is joining a fraternity and once you join you're obliged to become an asshole

[Seil]

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

I hope protesters burn Missouri to the ground over this, in the least destructive but most dialogue-provoking manner feasible

In short: If you are a white police officer tracking down a minority suspect in this country you can do whatever the flying fuck you want, including murder, and you won't even have to go on trial for the mere possibility that you're guilty of committing a crime while doing so.

And yet conservatives will proclaim that "Racism is dead in America" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that's a good one, conservatives

(Really wish Obama had the stones and/or the political capital to make a fuss over this)

If you want to perpetrate crimes in this cesspit of a country, become a police officer, it's the easiest way to achieve exactly what you want.

Racism will never die out completely due to our pack instincts getting the better of some people and racism generally still being taught by certain parents.

And yes like snake said, not all cops are bad. Be mad at the crooked cops that give the badge a bad name. And support the good cops whom are also trying to put an end to civilian casualties like this boy. And general corruption in the force. And still fulfil their duty to protect and serve.

I don't believe in generalization. We may be a pack species, but individuality dictates we are still quite different from one another and will act independently of one another. We can't ignore that their are cops in the force trying to stop this as well.

As for why cops can for the most part get off the hook too easily. Part of it is connections, part of it is a flaw in our justice system, part of it is general corruption in the force and part of it is the fear that arresting these cops means 1 less cop in the force. Weakening the police force there, making it tougher to deal with other crimes going on at the time. Even though in cases like this. That would be a good thing. Let someone else take that officer's place.

And while everyone loves screaming racism at every shooting featuring a minority. That's not always the case, sometimes it's a panicky cop that relies way to much on his gun to mask incompetence. Sometimes it's an old veteran that's going through PTSD and flares up at the worst time.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Kyanbu The Legend

And yes like snake said, not all cops are bad.

If that's the takeaway you garnered from what I've written, then either I'm terrible at writing or your reading comprehension skills are in desperate need of improvement.

I'll actually bet on the former this time, because I failed to bring up police militarization in this context and how it subsequently barely even matters if most cops out there imagine themselves to be 'decent people' because they're armed to fight enemy combatants as if they're occupying a goddamn war zone.

Fuck man, it doesn't matter that "Most cops are good people." Because, here's the thing: As a card-carrying liberal progressive idiot who generally tends to believe that people at least imagine themselves to be decent people, I'm pretty sure even this fuckwit who shot an unarmed black man 12 times thinks he's a decent person. And he probably is! I mean, this atrocity happened in an instant, and outside of that incident there's decades of years of an upstanding civilian life that guy probably lived. Presumably he has a family and parents and friends and a social life and hobbies and interests and I'd like to imagine that outside the role he's chosen to play in society this 'Crooked Cop' probably treats people with respect and has done nice things in his lifetime.

The problem isn't the person, it's the job. In civilian clothes, the vast majority of officers probably are decent people. After all, we only live in a society that's something like 5% comprised of sociopaths, and even many sociopaths seek out help and don't resort to bad behavior just because they lack empathy.

But once you don the uniform, you become something else -- a Cop -- and the rules change. You're empowered by an institution with rules and codes of conduct that actively encourage you view racial minorities as suspects, and then you're given immense firepower and told you absolutely can get away with whatever the fuck you want. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And so you got a bunch of white guys in a gang, a cult, a dangerous organization who are brainwashed into believing that they're "protecting the community" by treating all African Americans like parasites and disregarding basic laws about such matters as Miranda rights or probable cause or proportional self-defense.

Nice, pleasant individuals can become monsters in the wrong groups. And that's how we have to look at this. No, not all persons who choose to become police officers in the United States are 'bad guys.' But, in the act of becoming a police officer, part of their own identity is warped -- thrust head-first into a militarized syndicate where Right is Wrong, Good is Bad, Up is Down and the rules don't matter.

EDIT: You know what, I take back my generous hypothetical painting Officer Darren Wilson as possibly a decent human being outside his uniform because stories like this seem to even put that perception in doubt.

He draws a gun instead of any kind of non-lethal weapon when confronted with non-lethal force?!?
A twenty foot gap and he has to rely on lethal force?!?
He couldn't wait FIFTEEN SECONDS for help to arrive?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
But OH NOES HIS SOCKS HAVE MARIJUANA LEAVES ON THEM how fucking suspicious is thaaaaaaaat
Oh but WAIT, he LOOKED LIKE A DEMON, says the Cop who is not in any way a racist prick

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Nope, I understood what you meant. it's part of why I said what I said afterwards.

I agree that absolute power corrupts.

[Overcast]

I am so distant from the story since due to my distance from the news in general I tend not to be aware of things until people in Canada care about it. Still I am always surprised about this sort of fraternal need organizations like this have to defend individuals who harm the overall image after they have already been outed to the media.

I'm a member of the Navy, in the late 80's we decided to shift from our public image of being drunken, violent womanizers. And while there are still plenty in the Navy any time that they fuck up visably we string them up and let them be an example for everyone to look at, even if it means dooming them to a prison in another country.

Descrimination is a real problem, and even if everything they are trying to say is true about the scenario it still doesn't reflect well on the organization. Best thing they could do was hang this guy up, show a distance between what he did and what they feel, and show the rest of these guys they really need to THINK before they use their weapon.

But now they let it ride and riots insue, the KKK is supporting them, Anonymous is countering that, every damn branch of the national government will be shoving their nose in their business. It'll never be the same.

[Token]

Of course it'll be the same. This has been going on since the whites shipped us over to pick their cotton. Nothing is different.

[Overcast]

Heh, oddly I didn't mean that as if they were going to improve their nature at all. I simply meant that they as an organization will never be able to go back to business as usual, the federal government will keep shitting on them for at least the next few months, after that local government representitives will constantly be bothering them to make sure they are training their people right and double double double checking for any sort of descrimination problems. They have to deal with the whole nation being aware of them, they are a political liability, and now they get to live with it.