Freddie Gray

[blah3]

What makes the police's job harder is changing someone for simply running away. If you knock around everyone in the neighborhood, you have nobody to talk to when the shit really hits the fan because they all resent you. Sure, he mat have been legally justified for running down Gray and detaining. That doesn't mean it's good or smart policing.

I don't see what his past arrests have anything to do with this case. If there was no probable cause in this case, it's all the more irrelevant and tells me that's subterfuge to hide the bad PC.

Um, I did not say not to look into what could have been knocking around. I think I was the first one on this thread to bring up a rough ride.

What makes it (by that I mean the chase and arrest) good policing is that it did indeed target a likely offender. Part of the police's job is to reduce the amount of drug activity going down. That's why his background is important to the distinction. The man had previous drug violations. Investigating a man who suspiciously runs from police, who had previous drug violations is good policing.

Now what is with the change in tone on probable cause? You yourself said him running from the cops is suspicious behavior. You also know that has been reviewed by the Supreme Court and allowed.

[darb72]

Probably not?

I love how you abandon due process with such whimsey.

How am I abandoning due process? Because I'm not broken up that a career criminal is dead? Twenty cases against him in Maryland courts, five still open. He was on parole and still committing crimes.

Abandoning due process is saying the officers used unnecessary force before we know all the facts.

[HoustonRaven]

Um, I did not say not to look into what could have been knocking around. I think I was the first one on this thread to bring up a rough ride.

When I said knock around, I meant it in general terms, not the ride specifically. Meaning, you can't go out there and bust everyone on every corner for every little thing.

What makes it (by that I mean the chase and arrest) good policing is that it did indeed target a likely offender. Part of the police's job is to reduce the amount of drug activity going down. That's why his background is important to the distinction. The man had previous drug violations. Investigating a man who suspiciously runs from police, who had previous drug violations is good policing.

That's precisely what makes it horrible policing. Sure, law enforcement has a prevention mandate, but arresting / detaining someone because they 'might' or 'likely' do something is horrible policing at its finest.

Now what is with the change in tone on probable cause? You yourself said him running from the cops is suspicious behavior. You also know that has been reviewed by the Supreme Court and allowed.

No change in tone at all. I am assuming the PC the cops used was him running away in a high crime area. There still could be a chance, when all the facts come out, there was zero PC. We just don't know yet.

[blah3]

That's precisely what makes it horrible policing. Sure, law enforcement has a prevention mandate, but arresting / detaining someone because they 'might' or 'likely' do something is horrible policing at its finest.


.

I completely disagree. Put me in the Broken Windows camp on policing.

[HoustonRaven]

I completely disagree. Put me in the Broken Windows camp on policing.

And I completely disagree that what you described is broken windows policing. It's the complete opposite of it.

[dreamjo]

What makes the police's job harder is changing someone for simply running away. If you knock around everyone in the neighborhood, you have nobody to talk to when the shit really hits the fan because they all resent you. Sure, he mat have been legally justified for running down Gray and detaining. That doesn't mean it's good or smart policing.

Thank you and bless you for this.

HR, have you ever heard of Adrian Schoolcraft?

[HoustonRaven]

Thank you and bless you for this.

HR, have you ever heard of Adrian Schoolcraft?

I had to google his name. I remember the incident, not the name. I don't know enough about it to really give my $.02.

[dreamjo]

I had to google his name. I remember the incident, not the name. I don't know enough about it to really give my $.02.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...-remain-silent


This provides the opportunity to hear him speak. He makes the same point I thanked you for. As well as some other strong points, in my opinion.

[wickedsolo]

You've been told the reason. You just don't like the answer. So yes, you are indeed perpetuating false notions.
Now, you may think it minor, but do you think casting aspersions on cops legitimate actions helps or hurts your belief about how blacks view cops? Do you think then that the surrounding community is going to be helpful with the cops to keep the area in which the live safer? Do you think that lady in the video screaming 'his leg broke and you all dragging him like that' is going to be reliable in any statement? And people are not reliable in statements make the polices' job harder.

So you have a guy, who is not in running attire, nor did he appear to trying to get somewhere in a hurry, runs specifically because he saw a cop. Turns out that man has a history of drug related crimes and was to appear in court soon. That actually sounds like good policing.

The part in this story that is questionable is how the man got severely hurt and wound up dead.

If the reason is that they just decided to chase some black guy because he ran away from them in a bad neighborhood, then yea, I don't like that reason. To me, there is something missing there.

According to The Fanatic's post, the cops may have said something along the lines that they needed to speak with him and then he took off. That, IMO, is a much better reason than some of the other narrative that I've been reading (e.g. he saw the cops, he ran, they chased). Again - and you've still yet to answer this - if the cops are willing to just chase a black guy running from them in a bad neighborhood because running from them (according to you) means they're guilty of something, then I'd imagine that cops are just constantly chasing black guys around in those neighborhoods. Right?

My logic:
Black folk are brought up in a culture that distrusts law enforcement. This is especially true in cities.
Cops walking a beat in those neighborhoods come into contact with a lot of black folk.
I would argue that a majority of black folk - especially males - run from cops regardless of whether they have something to hide.
If running from a cop is probable cause and cops chase guys who run from them, then cops must chase everyone, right?

Where is the objectivity there?

That's why I'm saying there is something else missing here. Those cops had either witnessed him doing something illegal - which hasn't really been reported yet - or someone had tipped them off onto some bad shit and Freddie Gray fit the description. That's the piece of information I'm looking for.

[HoustonRaven]

Cops don't have to chase everyone. PC isn't a mandate for a cop to act. It gives them legal authority to act, but it's not automatic or forced. Cops have a ton of discretion on a lot of actions.

My thinking is this guy, for whatever reeason, ran at the site of the cops. Poor training / tactics led these officers to conclude he must be worth chasing or they recognized him from a previous arrest so they chased him, detained him and hoped to pin a charge on him after the fact. They got lucky by finding the knife.

I'd also add that cops in that neighborhood don't walk the beat. And that's part of the larger problem. They ride through in their cars / bikes but don't actually engage the people.

[JohnBKistler]

No matter how bad of a dude Freddie Grey was, he didn't deserve to be treated like a piece of meat with no regard of his health and well being in the back of that van.
Fucking ridiculous if you ask me!!

And then you want to know why there are all these uproars from the inner city neighborhoods against the police that we see on national TV almost daily now.
Stuff like this is why!!

I think this gets at the heart of the issue.

Recently, I have been noticing some videos posted on-line of how other police around the world handle arrests and violent situations. It provides a striking contrast to what we've seen recently in the US. There is even one where 4 police officers on vacation from Sweden broke up a fight in a New York subway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDAB35SYIr0

And yes, I know there are major differences in culture, demographics, etc. But, to me, for whatever reason, policing in the US has gone from "serve and protect" to "us vs. them" and "the first rule of policing is you go home at night to your family."

To be clear. I think the vast majority of police are law-abiding, honorable public servants. But there is something amiss when the few in the minority can feel free abuse citizens' basic rights. And the really big problem is the police are not policing themselves. The majority of good cops are letting them get away with it ("but for video").

[wickedsolo]

Cops don't have to chase everyone. PC isn't a mandate for a cop to act. It gives them legal authority to act, but it's not automatic or forced. Cops have a ton of discretion on a lot of actions.

My thinking is this guy, for whatever reeason, ran at the site of the cops. Poor training / tactics led these officers to conclude he must be worth chasing or they recognized him from a previous arrest so they chased him, detained him and hoped to pin a charge on him after the fact. They got lucky by finding the knife.

I'd also add that cops in that neighborhood don't walk the beat. And that's part of the larger problem. They ride through in their cars / bikes but don't actually engage the people.

:word

And if that's the case - they just chased the dude because he ran from them - then I don't think that was a good enough of a reason to pursue and detain him.

If they were riding through on their bikes/car and got a call from dispatch about something illegal from someone matching Freddie Gray's description, that's different. At this point though, I've not heard/read that to be the case.