The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Jell 0 Biafra]

Illegal chokehold, caught on video, guy doing nothing except selling smokes, tells them he can't breathe, coroner rules homicide....but the grand jury rules there's not even a case to answer?


What exactly would it take for there to be a case to answer?

[heganboy]

Ok. I give up. Apparently at this point it is perfectly acceptable for cops in the US to kill and the benefit of the doubt will be given.

Ah, I miss the good old days of the RUC...

At least when I got stopped at a checkpoint then I knew what I was in for. I miss the old red torch circle with 5 other guys in flak jackets pointing guns at the car. Poor 17 year old English kids crapping themselves in the hedges and ditches.

Now a 12 year old can get shot on sight in a playground. Cop can kill a guy with an illegal chokehold. And who knows what else. It's definitely a win to have genetically low amounts of melanin in the US.

[muppet]

The Garner decision is inexplicable and unforgivable.

But this is almost worse: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30287363

According to St Louis police, the 32-year-old Bosnian immigrant was driving his car with two passengers, including his fiance, when something hit his vehicle. Begic got out and was confronted and murdered by multiple attackers.

Begic was unconscious when emergency personnel arrived on the scene, and he later died at a local hospital.

Police have arrested three teenage suspects and charged them with murder. They are still looking for a fourth.

Although the suspects are black or Hispanic, and Begic was white, St Louis police say that they have no indication that race was a factor in the attack.

The protagonists will hopefully be found, tried and sentenced accordingly.

But my problem is this. The murderers in the latter case are being used as the excuse for the murders in the Ferguson, Cleveland and New York cases. The people using this argument are generally the far right Fox News type lunatics whose hysterical rants sadly have massive traction with many in the US. We see at least one regular poster here reproducing that low brow hatred over and over again.

How any sane person can link 4 hammer wielding psychos, who murder a passer-by for no apparent reason, to the justification of police strangling a man for selling cigarettes, or shooting a 12 year old for playing with a toy gun, is beyond me. There is little chance for any progress when this type of lunacy is accepted as one side of the argument. And it is very much one side of this argument. Look at twitter and even the BBC article above states: " The same media that descended on Ferguson en masse, in all their fact-free, hysteria-inducing, narrative-perpetrating glory, will be nowhere to be found" - Arnold Ahlert, The Patriot Post.

Thus the all protests and reaction to the killings by the police are apparently a media overreaction! The Grand Juries certainly seem to agree, as do the State Prosecutors and each of the Police Forces involved.

'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.' - Apparently Benjamin Franklin although this (inevitably) is disputed.

[theskull1]

Love this performance from an artist called B Dolan who pretty much describes American governance. This is what it is, and this is what it always was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwzljOb_dN8

[Denn Forever]

Things never change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02rn2FJe9o

[Carmen Stateside]

Thousands of protestors on the streets of New York tonight. City at a standstill.

[macdanger2]

Only just saw the video of Eric Garner, seems fairly clear that he was posing no threat to the cops. Unbelievable that he hasn't been indicted by the grand jury - any info on what their decision was based on??

[Carmen Stateside]

From NY Times http://nyti.ms/1vliOFL

The fatal encounter in July was captured on videos and seen around the world. But after viewing the footage and hearing from witnesses, including the officer who used the chokehold, the jurors deliberated for less than a day before deciding that there was not enough evidence to go forward with charges against the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, 29, in the death of the man, Eric Garner, 43.

An autopsy by the city's medical examiner found that Mr. Garner's death was a homicide resulting from the chokehold — a maneuver banned by the Police Department in 1993 — and the compression of his chest by police officers.

[macdanger2]

From NY Times http://nyti.ms/1vliOFL

The fatal encounter in July was captured on videos and seen around the world. But after viewing the footage and hearing from witnesses, including the officer who used the chokehold, the jurors deliberated for less than a day before deciding that there was not enough evidence to go forward with charges against the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, 29, in the death of the man, Eric Garner, 43.

An autopsy by the city's medical examiner found that Mr. Garner's death was a homicide resulting from the chokehold — a maneuver banned by the Police Department in 1993 — and the compression of his chest by police officers.

So basically they thought what happened in the video was fine.

Are these protests going to be big enough to,change anything? What sort of change would you even start with?

[Carmen Stateside]

The protests will change nothing.  It will go the same way as the occupy movement i suspect, just fading away into the background after a few weeks.  Some new big news story will come along and they will be forgot about. 
Be interesting to see how today goes. There is another mass protest organized for today in NY and with it being a Saturday i would think organizers will be expecting a large turnout. 

[macdanger2]

The protests will change nothing.  It will go the same way as the occupy movement i suspect, just fading away into the background after a few weeks.  Some new big news story will come along and they will be forgot about. 

That's what I thought alright

[whitey]

The protests will change nothing.  It will go the same way as the occupy movement i suspect, just fading away into the background after a few weeks.  Some new big news story will come along and they will be forgot about. 
Be interesting to see how today goes. There is another mass protest organized for today in NY and with it being a Saturday i would think organizers will be expecting a large turnout.

Carmen....as a long term resident of NYC, I would be interested to hear your personal opinion of they NYPD

[FL/MAYO]

I deal with cops here all the time, they do put up with a lot of B.S and I would hate to do their job but most of the time their behavior and aggressiveness while on calls leads to most the problems they encounter.  Honestly if I was an African American and was pulled over by the cops I would be very nervous about where I put my hands. Having said they have a very difficult job dealing with some of the biggest lowlifes you could ever meet.

[muppet]

I deal with cops here all the time, they do put up with a lot of B.S and I would hate to do their job but most of the time their behavior and aggressiveness while on calls leads to most the problems they encounter.  Honestly if I was an African American and was pulled over by the cops I would be very nervous about where I put my hands. Having said they have a very difficult job dealing with some of the biggest lowlifes you could ever meet.

Why is that? In the world's richest country?

As an aside, I am frequently in New York and have never had anything but a positive experience with them.

[FL/MAYO]

I deal with cops here all the time, they do put up with a lot of B.S and I would hate to do their job but most of the time their behavior and aggressiveness while on calls leads to most the problems they encounter.  Honestly if I was an African American and was pulled over by the cops I would be very nervous about where I put my hands. Having said they have a very difficult job dealing with some of the biggest lowlifes you could ever meet.

Why is that? In the world's richest country?

As an aside, I am frequently in New York and have never had anything but a positive experience with them.

It might be the worlds richest country, but the living standards in some areas are terrible. If you live in these poorer areas its all about survival, some children rare themselves because their parents couldn't  give a toss about them. So you can imagine how some of these kids turn out, the value of a human life to a kid that has grown up in this environment is probably a lot less than yours or mine. This is the type of person I am referring to when I say cops have a difficult job as this is their clientele 80% of the time.
I am glad your interactions with NYPD have been positive, what part of New York were you visiting?