This is probably a 180 for me, but I do have to ask what the point of these "protests" are. I'm not saying they don't have a right to do it, and I would never get into the slippery-slope of trying to tell someone how they "should" protest... but do they really know what they're protesting?

At the risk of reciting a conservative talking point, what about the inner-city crime? How do we solve that? Police officers should certainly face the same legal ramifications for their dumb actions as anyone else... and some of these well-publicized shootings have absolutely shown how cops get off light, but are we really acting like police brutality is an epidemic? It's not even close. There have been 3,000+ murders in Chicago this year. That should break our hearts for all those innocent victims who were brutally murdered - little girls, little boys, innocent mothers, innocent bystanders... it's appalling... but it's not interesting to talk about or try to solve - or perhaps it's too hard to try to solve.

Laws in this country are undoubtedly targeted toward minorities. Drug laws should be reformed, as should our prison sentences for a whole slew of crimes... but when I read stories about gang members throwing shit at cops in their neighborhood and yelling profanity at them as they try to investigate murders, it really does make me somewhat sympathetic to police. Even if some of them are bad eggs, they are the only ones in these neighborhoods trying to do anything to curb this violence. To act as though they are scum and necessarily evil because of an institution that is tasked with dealing with crime is beyond comprehension to me. They literally put their lives on the line to go into these neighborhoods and deal with these gut-wrenching crimes where even kids are brutally murdered. The broad brushes here are truly ignorant and short-sighted.

Just using the 168 number posted above I compared it to wiki's number of 765,000 sworn police officers in the country. This does not include federal officers. I am assuming a cop has not shot more than one person. Regardless of crime committed or whether they were armed or not that is a significant number of cops that have not shot any black people.

Using the bolded part it seems then that many on the Farve Fan I hate the police and think they are monsters train are blaming MANY for the few.

At the same time the police holding criminal cops accountable for their actions would be a huge step in the right direction.

This is exactly why it's okay to hold an entire group responsible for the actions of a few.

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

So it's okay for the police to stop and harass African-Americans at a much higher rate than other people?

JORR is a fan of the police!

This is exactly why it's okay to hold an entire group responsible for the actions of a few. Especially when they are unionized. Only one cop shot Laquan McDonald, but every other cop that was there lied about it in his report. I'm sure that most cops wouldn't have beaten that little Polish bartender like Abbate did and maybe when a group of them is drinking together they call Abbate an asshole, but when reporters tried to cover his trial, they tried to stop them. And every cop I know thought that was the right thing to do.
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=21227

You seem to be confusing appearance with ideas and actions.

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

Well there are 3000+ shootings, not murders.

To your larger point though, you are right.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

Exactly. The police unions protect these cops as do ordinary citizens who basically won't convict a cop on just about anything that requires significant jail time for on the job misconduct, and in the rare circumstances they do it almost always ends up with a light or reduced sentence.

George Ryan was sentenced to 61 years and served over 5 years for corruption which lead to the deaths of others. The sad fact is that it is a virtual certainty that a police officer could have walked up to that minivan and filled it with bullets to the point where it exploded and would not have been sentenced or served that long of a sentence because by all records that I can find a police officer has never served 5 years or more in prison for a gun related on the job incident.

This may finally be the first one though but this is significantly different than most police killings: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/12/10/two-marshals-indicted-in-police-shooting-that-killed-6-year-old-boy/?utm_term=.8ea62637914c

This is bollocks. Those "real protests" only attract any kind of attention when there's violence or something else, obviously so the discussion can comfortably shift towards the violence of the protests rather than what's being protested. A player in the most popular sport in the country making this kind of gesture however attracts far more attention. You can make the case that something similar is happening here in terms of what's being debated but all that further reveals is the extent to which people are desperate to deflect from the actual issues no matter the method of protest. Pretending NFL players doing this have no actual stakes is to ignore the fact that sponsors and front offices are attempting to punish this behavior, thereby illustrating actual stakes exist. Concern trolling about method is still just concern trolling.

DeRay Mckesson was clearly involved in the REAL protests by your definition, yet I would say he was far more of a cynical opportunist than Kaepernick.

This is bollocks. Those "real protests" only attract any kind of attention when there's violence or something else, obviously so the discussion can comfortably shift towards the violence of the protests rather than what's being protested. A player in the most popular sport in the country making this kind of gesture however attracts far more attention. You can make the case that something similar is happening here in terms of what's being debated but all that further reveals is the extent to which people are desperate to deflect from the actual issues no matter the method of protest. Pretending NFL players doing this have no actual stakes is to ignore the fact that sponsors and front offices are attempting to punish this behavior, thereby illustrating actual stakes exist. Concern trolling about method is still just concern trolling.

DeRay Mckesson was clearly involved in the REAL protests by your definition, yet I would say he was far more of a cynical opportunist than Kaepernick.

I think your passion and thoughts on this are good. I personally feel you are wrong about this though. I trust that if properly reviewed, charged and put before a jury of most citizens cops would get punished as they should based on the crime. I think the 5 year thing you come back to here is caused by superiors, prosecutors, unions and some judges but not most citizens.

It's obviously hard to prove but many of the cases that have gone to trial have gone that way though.

It also has to do with how people view the cops. When I mentioned before that truck driving was a more dangerous profession there were people on this board that tried to make a joke about how dare I act like this true fact is instead a true fact. It would be natural for a member of a jury to say "The cop messed up but he has an incredibly dangerous job and it was just a momentary mistake".

There has to be a reason that it seems impossible to find any cop who served more than 5 years in jail for an on the job gun related crime.

Not at all.

From the police point of view, the majority of violent crime in Chicago is committed by young African-American males. Based of these actions and ideas, you are saying it would be okay to judge an entire group responsible for the actions of the few.

If you hate Laurence, then don't listen - don't comment. When he co-hosts the B&B show, take that day off ... listen to an old podcast of a Bernstein solo show and jerk off all day.

Again, I am not an expert but the numbers here try. If this year 168 black men were killed and some of them were armed or in some process that justified the shooting there will be no conviction. I would have to assume that a some of them get classified as accidental. In the balance is where the uncertainty is. I have to think many are 5 years or less because they are charged as manslaughter. Some plead out as well. As you said hard to find but I do not think there are a lot of capital murder cases against cops and some of those that do have reasonable doubt that makes the case hard like Baltimore.

In the end what you describe is a problem that demands a cause identified and changes made. But the numbers just do not make your case off some super love of cops by the masses. People respect the cops or law and order by default sure but 168 killings out of 765,000 or more cops does not scream out for all people to despise the police either.

And please know there was know other way to type that and I do not mean to devalue the 168.

I think we are focusing on these high profile murders when we should take a step back. The killings ARE a small number but what is the number of times someone gets stopped for DWB? That's not something that can be quantified but I think if you took a straw poll among the lodge it would be pretty high. That's where the real frustration happens with police. A black person has a much higher chance of getting harassed by police then a white person does. I'd like to think that it is getting better but who the hell knows...

I'm not talking about one year. I'm talking about the entirety of our lifetimes. More Illinois governors have served over 5 years in jail for on the job gun related crime than cops have.

This doesn't mean all of them were not justified. You would just think as the decades go on that there would have been one non-justifed police action with a gun that deserves at least 5 years in jail. We put people in jail for longer for drug possession and yet a cop can wrongfully kill someone on the job and not have to face consequences that make any sense.

No. It's perfectly fine to judge a person on his or her ideas or actions or beliefs. If you're judging a black guy simply because he's black, that's an entirely different thing.

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

I think we are focusing on these high profile murders when we should take a step back. The killings ARE a small number but what is the number of times someone gets stopped for DWB? That's not something that can be quantified but I think if you took a straw poll among the lodge it would be pretty high. That's where the real frustration happens with police. A black person has a much higher chance of getting harassed by police then a white person does. I'd like to think that it is getting better but who the hell knows...

Sorry I can't help you. You are stuck on the 5 year thing and good luck in your search for a suitable answer.

So every police officer has the same ideas or beliefs or actions as the ones who shoot people and cover it up?

You want to make it about a specific year when more years paint a much larger picture.

Are you serious? They all belong to the same union that supports any criminal cop regardless of the circumstances. Like I said, they may call the Abbates assholes while sitting around shooting the shit or privately think Van Dyke is a lunatic, but when push comes to shove they all "have the back" of their fellow officer. And I understand that to some degree as I said in my post above. But that doesn't mean we should support that as a society. Don't you think we can do better?

It seems funny to me in a unfunny subject that just a few things can help immensely going forward. Abolish the police union. Set up a fair process for cops to address their concerns and interests. Set up a joint government/citizen review board. Politics would probably still fuck it up but it can't be worse.

How about decentralizing the police? I think if Laquan McDonald was your actual neighbor it might be a little tougher to shoot him in the back 16 times.

Are you serious? They all belong to the same union that supports any criminal cop regardless of the circumstances. Like I said, they may call the Abbates assholes while sitting around shooting the shit or privately think Van Dyke is a lunatic, but when push comes to shove they all "have the back" of their fellow officer. And I understand that to some degree as I said in my post above. But that doesn't mean we should support that as a society. Don't you think we can do better?

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

I'm saying your assertion that "judging the many because of the few is okay" is silly and dangerous.

I think your passion and thoughts on this are good. I personally feel you are wrong about this though. I trust that if properly reviewed, charged and put before a jury of most citizens cops would get punished as they should based on the crime. I think the 5 year thing you come back to here is caused by superiors, prosecutors, unions and some judges but not most citizens.