The Goat Pen

FTW

Looks like Holder is stepping down

rex chapman will not be pleased

I knew Holder was shutting it down once he threw all in on Ferguson. He was speaking with a freedom that only someone soon to leave office speaks.

two other stories have come up since Ferguson that to me are much more valid than Ferguson.

in Dayton a guy 22 year old black man was swinging a crossman air-rifle around while talking on the phone to his GF in the air gun aisle at Wal-Mart

A customer called 911, exaggerated the situation, and as a result police were led to believe he was pointing a loaded weapon at children among others. Video shows the police ran into the store, while other shoppers were just going about their business (a red flag to me) came up on him and shot him point blank was he was swinging the gun in a back and forth motion.

Now the gun looks exactly like an assault weapon, however the police went solely by the situation described by the 911 caller without any additional confirmation and killed the man.

in South Carolina a young black male was pulled over for a seat belt violation, and as he was going back to get his license, he leaned in head first to the car and the state trooper shot him multiple times.

In the first case, the grand jury has decided not to indict. In the second case, the State troopers immediately fired the man and he is facing aggravated assault charges (the man lived).

In the first case, if that was a 14 year old white kid, people would be going apeshit instead its a dreadlocked 22 year old male. I personally think the 911 caller should be facing serious charges.

I don't know that you should blame an overreacting citizen. Police should be trained to handle a toy gun on aisle 14 at the local Wall-Mart - no matter how hyperbolic of a report that they received from a concerned citizen with an over active imagination.

O)U DONT UNDERSTQAND HO)W HARD OF AJOB THE POLICE HAVE MOTHERDCUCKER!!!

AlabamAlum wrote:I don't know that you should blame an overreacting citizen. Police should be trained to handle a toy gun on aisle 14 at the local Wall-Mart - no matter how hyperbolic of a report that they received from a concerned citizen with an over active imagination.

yea I agree - but that doesn't excuse someone creating false pretenses for what the police are reacting to.

How many times recently have swat teams pulled up to someone's house, knocked their door down and shot their dog because some fuckstick thought it would be funny to call in a 911 call on someone?

I think the cops exercised extremely poor situational awareness in the Wal-Mart example.

If you run into a store with guns drawn and people aren't hiding behind bags of dog food and bins full of Gummy bears, and instead are giving you a WTF? look , then maybe you should slow the pace down a bit and try to get a handle on the situation.

Citizens are not good with things like this. And police/fire/ambulance people know it. Once as a medic working dispatch, I called out a life flight chopper due to the over-exaggerated telephone report of a layman first responder. Procedure was the first medics at the scene made that call, but I bought into the guy's assessment and made the call. It turned out to be something just a tiny bit more than you would expect a Boy Scout to be able to handle if he had completed the requirements for his First Aid Badge.

I got made fun of and my boss threatened to have me pay the chopper bill. Come to think of it, that idiot 'first responder' should still be in jail!

to add to that, the Mothers Against Guns or whatever the group is called having a tizzy fit over Kroger right now has taken a stance that if they see any open carry people in a store they are shopping, they will call 911

what if that guy is dead because of some high strung harpy has an anti-gun bias?

I still blame the cop. People are idiots. That's why you have a dedicated and professional force instead of some system involving volunteer constables.

to be clear, I don't think the cops should get off here - they need to face charges (although the grand jury says otherwise)

I understand what you're saying and I have definitely been involved with idiot 'concerned citizens' but unless it is an outright false report as opposed to an exaggeration or an 'honest' mistake, I'm not for charging citizens.

It seems to me that the two outcomes from such a policy is two-fold: (1) people would stop calling in to report things outta fear that they would be charged with over-exaggerating or mistaken reports, and (2) it would give the cops a scapegoat. "You see we shot the unarmed black guy because of what the citizen said. Not our fault!" And, things like, "Yes, it took us an hour to get to the crime scene, but the guy who called didn't sufficiently convey the severity. Not our fault!"

But I no doubt understand your aggravation and frustration with the moronic masses.

Because the dude in South Carolina was not killed and the dash cam was on, the officer will probably get convicted. If one of those two items (particularly the dash cam) were not in place, SC Police would be wearing "I Am [insert officer name]" bracelets while overseeing the protests.

Florida State, a publicly funded research institution, has named a creationist its new president. The science faculty must be going nuts.

What does the football coach think?

I'm sure he was given the final right of refusal so he must be cool with it.

Yeah, no experience in academe and doesn't believe in evolution. You know who is laughing their asses off? Faculty and admins at the University of Florida.

he believes in crab legs though

A lot of presidents of universities are not academics. They are there for their administration and fundraising skills. Erskine Bowles was president of the whole NC university system and he did not have a graduate degree.