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U.S. police torn between shame and pride for their badge

17 Comments
By Laura BONILLA, Laurent BANGUET and Javier TOVAR

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© 2020 AFP

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We weren’t the ones who killed George Floyd. We’re not bad cops. Cops all over are punished because of bad Minnesota cops. Don’t paint us with the same paintbrush is their point, I gather. Right. Don’t assume all of the group are bad because of some bad actors within the group. Most are not bad. Funny, because that’s the same point made against cops’ use of racial profiling, stop and frisk, etc. Cry me a river. No one is killing unarmed cops over and over and over throughout the country, based on some mistaken belief that all are bad. We are calling for you to get your house in order and stop murdering people. And you get all bent out of shape, poor little disrespected Michael O’Meara.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

"It's happening far too often, scenes where black people and people of color in general are dying at the hands of law enforcement, usually for really minor offenses," said Ben Kelso, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Black Police Association.

Mr. Kelso's statement is disingenuous. They are not dying because they committed a minor offense. The common denominator in these tragedies is resisting/fleeing/attacking the police. It completely changes the situational dynamics and often turns a minor offense into a major offense. With that said, yes there are some bad cops. There are also some bad black citizens. Painting with a broad brush is a two-way street.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

There are a lot of good cops, there are a lot of bad cops. Over here we don't have a national standard for the training and accountability of law enforcement officers. Things could be better, much better.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@Justin

Mr. Kelso's statement is disingenuous. They are not dying because they committed a minor offense. The common denominator in these tragedies is resisting/fleeing/attacking the police. It completely changes the situational dynamics and often turns a minor offense into a major offense. With that said, yes there are some bad cops.

Plenty evidence has been shown that no matter what black people do guilty or innocent, they still are killed by the police I don't remember Breona Taylor running when cops barged in her house on a no knock warrant at the wrong house then shot and killed her. I remember when the police shot a health care worker helping a mental ill patient after he complied and was lying on the ground. No one was arrested, they falsified police report. What about all those other false police reports and injustices against black people that what have been covered up?

There are also some bad black citizens. Painting with a broad brush is a two-way street.

The point that you miss is that black people have already painted with a broad brush stroke with deadly consequences. They want it to stop. The police feeling like it is now happening to them is just tough. People don't care.

Blue lives is a job that people choose to do. Being black is not a choice! The mainpoint is when black commit a crime they go to jail, and unfortunately they are sometimes tried and convicted by the arresting officer. The same is true for innocent black people.

When police officers almost always white commit a crime they get paid suspension or allowed to get hired on another police force.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Treat others as you want to be treated. Now they are getting a taste of their own medicine. It's not going down well, obviously.

Demilitarize them first. Then Defund Them. Rewrite judicial legislation in regards to qualified immunity. Make it more difficult to get qualified than it does a doctor.

There is no doubt in anybody's mind that there are good cops out there. Unfortunately, there is no reciprocity when it comes to BLM. See Dave Chappelle's 8:46.

Unfortunately, many of the readers here will never truly understand. You've got to trust this #BLM message. People who are trying to discredit it's message are the ones who are thrilled to see it go one. The thing about White Supremacy is that it hates to be challenged. The world we live in today gives those who have had a knee on their neck for centuries to rise up because they are more ambitious than those who depend on their complexion to get where they are today. The other guy got a higher test score. You lose!

2 ( +4 / -2 )

"Stop treating us like animals and dogs and start treating us with some respect."

The irony. Would be amusing if it weren't so blatant and blinkered.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Over a decade ago the FBI warned that white supremacists were infiltrating the nation's police forces. This was ignored. We are seeing the results. Brutalization and murder of people of color, particularly African American and Native people. Recently we saw hideous police brutality across the U.S. even against nonviolent demonstrators. Even in the worst of the 1960s it was not this bad. Please don't talk about "good cops" and "bad cops" (which was always a charade) but about an infection, a deadly white racist virus, which has infected the body of law enforcement and the judiciary.

If you go to the U.S. beware of that virus. Even a "good cop" might kill you for no good reason and get away with it.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

What Maria and The Trees said.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

"I am not Derek Chauvin... He killed someone. We didn't. We are restrained," Michael O'Meara, head of New York state's Police Benevolent Association, angrily said this week at a press conference.

No. Mr OMeara you (and other Union members and officials) didn't kill anyone,

but you have done everything that you can to shield Chauvin and others like him from exposure and prosecution.

Thereby fostering an atmosphere of invulnerability that has been the breeding ground or killing grounds that has allowed this whole situation to become what it is.

And will you accept responsibility for that?

No way. You cry persecution. Shameful.

gary

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Many US cops, including the Minneapolis cops, were trained by Israelis; so no wonder those cops treat Americans (all Americans, not just blacks) like Palestinians. That is where they learned kneeling on the neck.

If you want a more humane police force, stop all Israeli training.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

White Supremacist infiltration of American police department is not old news. Read the article (1 June 2020) by Danielle Schulkin:

Please understand this. It is simply not a problem of a few "bad apples." The systematic infiltration of white bigots to police departments is an attack on America's law enforcement agencies. An attack that threatens the very of the legal system as a whole. And it creating a throwback of violence Black people experienced at the end of Reconstruction.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Oops, somehow my lead into Danielle Schulkin did not get in. Just Google her name and "Police" "White Supremacists" and you'll get the article.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Many US cops, including the Minneapolis cops, were trained by Israelis; so no wonder those cops treat Americans (all Americans, not just blacks) like Palestinians. That is where they learned kneeling on the neck.

> If you want a more humane police force, stop all Israeli training.

excellent post!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Cops are conflicted about whether they should be proud or ashamed of being cops? I can solve that one easily: abolish the police.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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