Violent Protests in Baltimore

[BigJake]

I found this interesting article about a rather unique place that American police officers have gone to get specialized training: Israel.

"Interesting" is one word for it.

I didn't see a reason for his arrest?

Apparently he's been released -- could be the D.A. mentioned to the Baltimore cops that they can't actually charge someone with "being uppity" -- but it'll be a lucky thing if his colleagues still in custody don't somehow manage to completely accidentally break their own spines or something.

 

[cooleddie74]

I didn't see a reason for his arrest? We have a constitutional right to film the police, and law enforcement takes an oath to defend the constitution. We are evolving into a police state.

Tell that to the numerous citizens who are ordered under threat of arrest and criminal charges to stop filming police officers making stops and arrests. A right or not, there are a lot of short-tempered and bullying cops who either don't realize that or they just don't care and they don't want anybody else who doesn't have access to their dashboard camera footage seeing what they do.

 

[BigJake]

Why, it's almost like they've something to hide.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I've heard that honest people with nothing to hide have no reason to fear the police.

 

[fonzob1]

I've heard that honest people with nothing to hide have no reason to fear the police.

Including the police? If they have nothing to hide there should be no problem with us recording their activity.

 

[Jedi_Master]

It was a sarcastic joke.

 

[Tiger Devil Dog]

So when the not guilty verdicts come down how bad is it going to get?

 

[fonzob1]

It was a sarcastic joke.

So was mine...a half joke.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Thank God the officers have been charged!

Now maybe we'll find out exactly what happened. I am so very weary of all the arguments, rumors, speculation, and racism.

And maybe, just maybe, this can become a new beginning for police-civilian relations in Baltimore and in the US as a whole.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Baltimore Protesters Jailed Without Food For Days, Attorneys Say

Isn't this one of those extrajudicial punishment things like breaking people's spines while driving a police van?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

With regard to the other laws you listed, I said that I didn't see how they would apply and asked if you could point out how they would. If you would like to answer that question, I'm still interested in your answer. If not, that's okay too.

-- Conspiracy against rights -- When two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate a person from free exercise or enjoyment of civil rights (e.g., conspiring to threaten voters).

-- Deprivation of rights under color of law -- Typically for cases in which law enforcement or other government officials use their authority to deprive a person of their civil rights (e.g., Rodney King's attackers).

There was no probable cause to tackle Freddie Gray. Running while black is not grounds for two bicycle cops to chase you down and pound you into the pavement. By their own words they chased him because he fled in the other direction from them "unprovoked."

The conspiracy comes if more than two of the six officers involved conspired to give him a "rough ride" in the van to injure him and/or denied him proper treatment.

But it's all a moot point until we see how the state charges play out and whether a federal civil rights investigation is needed.

 

[Tiger Devil Dog]

Thank God the officers have been charged!

Now maybe we'll find out exactly what happened. I am so very weary of all the arguments, rumors, speculation, and racism.

And maybe, just maybe, this can become a new beginning for police-civilian relations in Baltimore and in the US as a whole.

What if they are found not guilty?

 

[cooleddie74]

Do you think the officers are guilty?

 

[fonzob1]

"It's not what you know, it's what you can prove." I am frankly astonished that they brought charges this quickly, when I didn't think we would see charges at all. It should have taken weeks of investigation. It will probably be tough to get a conviction for murder or manslaughter with the amount of evidence they have, but I have already been shocked once.

False arrest should be an easy sell though. They had no reason to arrest him.

 

[Tiger Devil Dog]

Do you think the officers are guilty?

I doubt they'll get a conviction of murder or manslaughter. They were certainly negligent in their duties though. Once the arrest is made, and it appears even the arrest was unjustified, then the prisoners safety is their responsibility

 

[BigJake]

They're being charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter (among oother things), which to my layman's understanding would appear to be perfectly applicable charges that would be hard to fight in this kind of situation -- absent some shocking new revelation -- for anyone who wasn't a cop. The real problem at this stage of course is that judges and juries in the States are very reluctant to actually convict cops of anything, no matter how baldly obvious the facts of the case might be. So we'll have to see how that aspect of things plays out.

Obviously there will be plenty of nauseating nonsense to look forward to: the defense accusing the deceased of writing rap lyrics, having been into Biggie or Tupac and having puffed on a blunt once; plentiful blowing of smoke from the police union, assisted by the self-appointed Internet Forum Deputies who are never in short supply; and so on.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I am frankly astonished that they brought charges this quickly, when I didn't think we would see charges at all. It should have taken weeks of investigation.

On the contrary, this is a perfectly normal turnaround for bringing charges when it comes to dealing with civilians. This timetable is only exceptional when it comes to charging police officers, because we give police ridiculous additional "Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights" protections of varying type and scope in state laws over-and-above the Bill of Rights and other Constitutional protections that apply to the rest of us poor schmucks. Police are quite literally above the law that applies to everyone else in the country, and then we wonder why so many of them act like the law doesn't apply to them (police almost never being indicted or convicted helps too).

 

[Mudd]

Violent resistance, rebellion, insurrection is hard to justify on an immediate and individual level, because individuals are harmed. It is also a historically predictable human reaction to oppression, victimization and unfair treatment under the law.

We as a US society have, cumulatively and over time, made a decision to maintain an underclass, segregated in economically unequal enclaves, with unequal access to property, education, credit, health care, protection under the law, civil process and so on. Historically, these kinds of underclasses either rebel or are forcibly suppressed.

We have also decided as a society to eliminate most of the formal legal barriers that once openly enforced the inequities of our system. What we didn't do was actually clean up the mess that a century of unequal treatment left behind. Overall, though many don't seem conscious of it, we are going the suppression route.

Yes.

Noting also that, obviously, the century of unequal treatment followed upon several centuries of forced labor that were foundational in creating the wealthy nation that so many of us enjoy and feel entitled to by birthright.

 

[Captrek]

Training in Israel? This PD looks like it trained in Ancient Rome.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

What these charges ensure, above all else, is a very thorough investigation of all the details of this case. Failing to bring charges allows for the situation to be more easily swept under the rug (bureaucratically speaking). This forces the whole sequence events into a very public, critical, legal light. If by some unforeseen (and, given the current knowledge of events, unlikely) circumstances the officers are innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, this will allow those facts to come to light. Otherwise, this provides the officers with the exact same due process Gray was entitled to, but did not have the opportunity to experience.