Protests in Ferguson, Missouri

[jimmyz]

It was sad fate that a robber who was walking home with stolen property was contacted by an officer who had no idea of said robbery. All the cop wanted was to get Brown and his friend out of the street and on to the sidewalk. For all Brown knew the cop was after him for the robbery. This put Brown on go and the adrenaline in him made him act defensively from get go. Brown didn't want to go to jail for the robbery and assaulted the officer who defended himself with deadly force. Just a sad string of events brought on by a big bully who thought he could act like a goon.

[The Dharma Bum]

yeah, it sounds like he was on a bad path. acting like that is literally risking your life.

[Darkhorse]

One less thug in the world.

[The Dharma Bum]

he was just some dumb kid that thought he was bigger than he really was

its a tragedy

[The Dharma Bum]

also the cop didn't know anything about that so he still f**k up, he could have killed some totally innocent person

[The Dharma Bum]

another thing, I think a lot of these cops are scared in these rougher neighborhoods, they've probably never been around anything like that before they became a cop. this makes them inclined to shoot first and ask questions later because they view the people there as "animals" or "scumbags" or whatever.

officers drawn from the community would likely be less hostile and more protective

humans have both an aggressive and a protective instinct, we need to be aware of what type of social context we are creating and arrange things accordingly. if these cops were protecting the community with this much zeal things would be great, instead they are literally attacking this community and anyone who gets in the way, like those reporters they gassed.

it's not even the rank and file cops that are performing badly, it's leadership that's lacking when something like these riots happen. we need to plan better communities.

[Darkhorse]

[The Dharma Bum]

I don't think the decency of the victim of a crime is part of the criteria needed to serve justice, whether or not the guy was a potential felon is utterly irrelevant in that regard

I'm not asking you to feel sorry for him, I'd like to see this thing properly investigated, and beyond that something intelligent done about whatever is creating the tense social situation there.

I don't think that classifying people as animals and shooting them 8 or 9 times in the street for slight infractions is really working out so well, the results speak for themselves

[spacemonkey]

Make a sign that says," Don't rob, get a job"

[spacemonkey]

On the other hand, police don't need to act like Nazi storm troopers either.