Derek Chauvin guilty [split topic]

[touchingcloth]

Based on that footage, and assuming things went the same way minus the guns, the girl in pink would have been stabbed in the chest, possibly fatally, possibly multiple times, before the cop could drag the other girl to the ground and restrain her. That's in an ideal situation where the attacker doesn't hurt either herself or the cop with the knife in the process.

It's not an ideal situation, but that's the first time I've seen one of these videos and thought, "Okay, that one was justified."

It's justifiable from the starting point that the cop had a gun, and in using it he may have prevented a murder. Does that justify the many, many occurrences where police with itchy trigger fingers have applied the same logic, and killed someone who based on video evidence was demonstrably no threat at all?

I've lived my whole life in countries where being stabbed by a nutter is a slight possibility, but being shot by a cop is outright impossible[nb]The de Menezes family and many others would disagree, of course.[/nb]. If I lived in the US, I feel like I'd have the same level of fear of being randomly stabbed by a nutter - i.e. essentially zero fear - but I'd have the additional fear that I might one day get mistakenly shot by a cop. Might dark-skinned brother lives in America now, and my two main fears for him there are the cops and the healthcare system, quite genuinely. The world's biggest economy.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

So relieved institutional racism is finished forever ❤️😊

We did it guys 💖

[jobotic]

Sock it to us Shoulders! We're all saying that.

Now I wish Chauvin had got away with it, then I would have understood that racism is still a thing.

[Buelligan]

prolly best for the BLM movement to distance themselves from this one tbh

I find this really strange.  Why do our societies have justice systems if we believe that it's OK for anyone (the Police) to just shoot people to death?  No one can know how this scenario would've played out.  No one. 

If we're going to say it's OK, understandable, to repeatedly shoot someone (a sixteen year old girl) to death because you believed they might kill another person (teenage girl), then why bother with law or courts or anything else, why not just have enforcers going round terminating anyone that they believe might commit a serious crime?

[a peepee tipi]

And a high profile prisoner in an (alleged) race crime? Fuggedaboutit. He's in for an awful time.

He's already been held in strict solitary with frequent check-ins because of his notoriety. He'll be kept in administrative segregation and every day guards will come over to slide him porn and dessert

[Paul Calf]

The dessert will have glass in it. No-one likes a copper in prison. The black gangs will be after his head and the Aryan Brotherhood won't touch a copper.

It's a shit, broken system and there's no reason to celebrate its dysfunctional cruelty.

[JaDanketies]

It wasn't that they might commit a serious crime. It's that they were in the process of trying to murder someone. A split second delay could result in their victim's person's death. It's not Minority Report. I'm not saying the perpetrator was committing a thought crime. Did you watch the video Buelligan?

[Buelligan]

It wasn't that they might commit a serious crime. It's that they were in the process of trying to murder someone. A split second delay could result in their victim's person's death. It's not Minority Report. I'm not saying the perpetrator was committing a thought crime. Did you watch the video Buelligan?

The point is, no one knows what would have happened.  Given that the police are provided with and trained to use, guns and tazers, that police officer had a range of choices when intervening.  If we are going to say that police officer had only one option, to repeatedly shoot this girl until she was dead.  If we're going to say that is the truth, then we have to ask ourselves why they carry tazers and why anyone bothers with trials. 

We can also ask whether it would have been acceptable for a police officer or a concerned individual to summarily execute Chauvin as he knelt on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes.  Would it?

[JaDanketies]

Yes it would have been appropriate for a civilian to use whatever force was necessary to save Floyd's life. Do you disagree? In this instance a good hard shove should be all that would be required but with the other cops around it'd probably require a shoot-out.

Tbh I think the yanks carry tazers to pacify people who are allegedly resisting arrest and not for life-threatening situations.

[Buelligan]

Do you see the difference between whatever force was necessary to save a life and repeatedly shooting someone until they die?  You seem unable to understand ideas of proportion or appropriateness.  I think it's important the police understand those things if they are permitted to carry weapons.  Very important.

[JaDanketies]

I think in the above instance the shooting was necessary and justified. All four bullets. If you're think lethal force is required, keep shooting until the threat has ended.

You don't and seem to think a taser would've been better. People carry on fighting when they've been tased. One stab is all it takes to kill someone. Like I said I'm open to being convinced but it'd have to be by an expert. Not someone who rhetorically asks why cops carry tazers but someone who explains to me why they do so and why a taser would've been the best choice in this instance.

"Black Lives Matter except for the ones that don't"?

Just if you're protesting against police brutality and the callous murder of black people who pose no threat, it's probably best to avoid highlighting a case of apparently justified lethal force when a black person posed a huge threat. The BLM spin on this should be about deprivation and poverty that led to this incident and not whether or not it's justified for the cops to kill someone who is in the process of murdering someone else.

[phantom_power]

Why would lethal force be necessary? If he shot her in the leg do you think she would get up and start stabbing again? Or just roll around in pain? Same with a taser. I think she would be too busy convulsing on the floor to do any stabbing

[phantom_power]

In this one case whitey has agreed in principle that the knife is there. In the word of Winston Wolf "Let's not start suckin' each others dicks quite yet"

I think we can still allow or accept black people in America to feel a bit of joy that a system that so often works against them has for once not done so, and that might represent a certain degree of change in how the police behave and get made to be accountable for their actions, even if it is slight and possibly a pipe dream

[idunnosomename]

So relieved institutional racism is finished forever ❤️😊

We did it guys 💖

its all thanks to auntie kamala and daddy joe. Mmmmmm yeah feels good

[MojoJojo]

Why would lethal force be necessary? If he shot her in the leg do you think she would get up and start stabbing again? Or just roll around in pain? Same with a taser. I think she would be too busy convulsing on the floor to do any stabbing

Leg shots aren't something that can be done quickly, and likewise tasers aren't great for stopping someone moments away from potentially murdering someone, as they have to get through clothes and might not work.

I'm not going to pretend to be qualified to judge whether the shooting was justified, but what is clear is the right wing media are absolutely loving being able to talk about this, rather than Chauvin, or the taser/gun mishap or the 100s of other cases. They were starting to struggle with holding the "comply with police 100% or get shot" and "land of the free" ideas together at the same time.

[Buelligan]

Comes to something when a police officer shooting a sixteen year old girl multiple times until she dies, outside her family home, is seen as a counterpoint, a welcome relief from reports of the constant terrible behaviour of the police.

[Wet Blanket]

Comes to something when a police officer shooting a sixteen year old girl multiple times until she dies, outside her family home, is seen as a counterpoint, a welcome relief from reports of the constant terrible behaviour of the police.

Although I get where you're coming from and actually broadly agree with you, I think the emotiveness of this point is undermined by the fact that the sixteen year old in question was in the process of murdering another teenage girl at the time. She wasn't waving a knife around and making threats, she had her against the car and was about a second away from plunging the knife in. If you're going to go reductionist you could also frame this as cop saves teenage girl from killer.

[Zetetic]

For the sake of clarity - the girl shot dead who we are talking about was called Ma'Khia Bryant.

It is has been claimed by her family that Ma'Khia Bryant was the person who called the police in the first place, noting again that the fight seems to have been occurring outside of her home. I believe that the police have declined to comment.

It's presumably a matter of some luck that no-one else was injured or killed, regardless of the skill of the shooter.

I don't think that anyone is claiming that the actions of Nicholas Reardon - the policeman who killed Bryant - are identical to Derek Chauvin's.

[Buelligan]

Although I get where you're coming from and actually broadly agree with you, I think the emotiveness of this point is undermined by the fact that the sixteen year old in question was in the process of murdering another teenage girl at the time. She wasn't waving a knife around and making threats, she had her against the car and was about a second away from plunging the knife in. If you're going to go reductionist you could also frame this as cop saves teenage girl from killer.

Does it seem odd to you - forgetting that we cannot know for sure what Ms Bryant intended, just put that on one side - does it seem odd that the police officer was able to shoot her at least four times, without hitting the other person?  You know, whilst we're explaining how difficult it is to shoot someone in the legs or use a tazer.

I find it incredible that people, quite a few people, seem to think shooting someone to death - who hasn't injured anyone and is very young, under age - is reasonable.  It's not reasonable.  It shouldn't be something people shrug away.  Shrugging stuff like that away is part of what's made this climate of police murder normal.

[JaDanketies]

To be honest I find it surprising that you don't think it's reasonable to kill someone who is in the process of murdering another person. How can you even tell who the good guys are in action movies?

[jobotic]

To be honest I find it surprising that you don't think it's reasonable to kill someone who is in the process of murdering another person.

Why bother stopping her then? Still one dead person.

You don't think its reasonable to question whether or not she needed shooting dead? Whether anyone does, whatever they're doing? Sometimes the answer might be yes but the question needs asking.

[Buelligan]

To be honest I find it surprising that you don't think it's reasonable to kill someone who is in the process of murdering another person. How can you even tell who the good guys are in action movies?

It's fairly boring to reiterate myself, the police are trained (one hopes) to deal with these situations.  They are armed, not just with aimable firearms but also tazers, presumably, FOR A FUCKING REASON. 

[Wet Blanket]

Does it seem odd to you - forgetting that we cannot know for sure what Ms Bryant intended, just put that on one side - does it seem odd that the police officer was able to shoot her at least four times, without hitting the other person?  You know, whilst we're explaining how difficult it is to shoot someone in the legs or use a tazer.

She gets shot mid-stab, let's not forget. He waits til literally the last second.

I find it incredible that people, quite a few people, seem to think shooting someone to death - who hasn't injured anyone and is very young, under age - is reasonable.  It's not reasonable.  It shouldn't be something people shrug away.  Shrugging stuff like that away is part of what's made this climate of police murder normal.

Well, she has sent that other girl to the deck when she tried to stab her (and who then gets kicked in the face by a grown man). I feel like your points are valid but not very well supported by this particular incident. The cops in France will shoot you if you're literally murdering someone.

[Flouncer]

It's just a really sad, baffling situation really. She's apparently called the police; she's involved in an altercation with several other people, is holding a knife - perhaps in self-defence, however unwisely... When the police have shown up, why has she not dropped the knife? Not only has she continued to brandish it but she's advanced towards another person in an aggressive manner. It doesn't really make any sense so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some mental health issues in play here. Ultimately a young woman has lost her life over some squabble, the reason for which probably seems pretty insignificant now, to those involved in it.

I think it's perfectly valid to ask whether the level of force used against her was reasonable, and to consider if a non-lethal method of incapacitating her could have been used. It's not often I'll say this, but this is one use of force incident where I can actually put myself in the shoes of the cop and understand that he had mere seconds to make a very difficult decision: his inaction could equally have caused serious injury or death to another person. I think MojoJojo has a really good point, that the right wing media are loving the opportunity to shift the conversation away from use of force incidents that are clearly unjustified. The usual suspects are also revelling in their barely-concealed glee at watching a black person die at the hands of a police officer; relishing the opportunity to paint black people as thugs who deserve what the police force is dishing out to them. It's just a fucking awful situation all round.

[El Unicornio, mang]

It's fairly boring to reiterate myself, the police are trained (one hopes) to deal with these situations.  They are armed, not just with aimable firearms but also tazers, presumably, FOR A FUCKING REASON.

As has been mentioned though, a Taser doesn't always stop someone.

from npr:

In more than 250 cases over three years, a Taser failed to subdue someone who was then shot and killed by police.

If the girl had been successful in stabbing her victim and she had died, people would be saying about the cop "you were right there, why didn't you stop her?"

[Zetetic]

As has been mentioned though, a Taser doesn't always stop someone.

So... police forces buy them for a laugh? Could be.

(I don't think it's clear that shooting at someone reliably stops them, for that matter.)

The argument that the Taser is imperfect isn't a good argument for preferring the gun (which has the downside of being considerably more likely to kill someone).

[Flouncer]

The argument that the Taser is imperfect isn't a good argument for preferring the gun (which has the downside of being considerably more likely to kill someone).

It's worth noting that there have also been cases where the police have tazed someone again and again until they died. So I'd suggest that the question of what weapon was used is less of an issue than the general mentality of the police: the idea that whatever level of force they choose to employ is justified simply because they're police officers, is a very deeply ingrained one, and no number of trials like the one we've just seen is going to tackle that in any meaningful way.

[Zetetic]

Sure, and I chose the words "considerably more likely" carefully. I appreciate they also cultivate a perverse effect there of encouraging use of weapons in the first place (precisely because they're perceived as having fewer downsides).

So I'd suggest that the question of what weapon was used is less of an issue than the general mentality of the police

Not so much for this particular dead child, perhaps, even if more broadly.

[phantom_power]

It's just a really sad, baffling situation really. She's apparently called the police; she's involved in an altercation with several other people, is holding a knife - perhaps in self-defence, however unwisely... When the police have shown up, why has she not dropped the knife? Not only has she continued to brandish it but she's advanced towards another person in an aggressive manner. It doesn't really make any sense so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some mental health issues in play here. Ultimately a young woman has lost her life over some squabble, the reason for which probably seems pretty insignificant now, to those involved in it.

I think it's perfectly valid to ask whether the level of force used against her was reasonable, and to consider if a non-lethal method of incapacitating her could have been used. It's not often I'll say this, but this is one use of force incident where I can actually put myself in the shoes of the cop and understand that he had mere seconds to make a very difficult decision: his inaction could equally have caused serious injury or death to another person. I think MojoJojo has a really good point, that the right wing media are loving the opportunity to shift the conversation away from use of force incidents that are clearly unjustified. The usual suspects are also revelling in their barely-concealed glee at watching a black person die at the hands of a police officer; relishing the opportunity to paint black people as thugs who deserve what the police force is dishing out to them. It's just a fucking awful situation all round.

The right wing media will always find a reason to justify the death of a black person and the innocence of a policeman. No-one is pure enough to withstand the trawl through their past to find a reason why they deserved to be shot, or "were no saint" as it is usually framed

[Flouncer]

The right wing media will always find a reason to justify the death of a black person and the innocence of a policeman. No-one is pure enough to withstand the trawl through their past to find a reason why they deserved to be shot, or "were no saint" as it is usually framed

Yep. Any previous brush with the law will be invoked, and if none can be found, they'll delve into the person's personal life to find something, even if it's as weak as 'they made a gun gesture in a Facebook photo.'