The Goat Pen

At this point, what does it matter?

10ac wrote:At this point, what does it matter?

Ed Zachary

Should it matter as much as a Prez's national guard service?

Toemeesleather wrote:Should it matter as much as a Prez's national guard service?

DOES it matter that dubya managed to jump ahead of others and join the Guard and avoid combat in Vietnam?

Nah.

At least he was the only one.

"You was on a ship, pardner. Pretty hard to make contact with the people when yer out floatin' in the fuckin' Gulf of Ton-Kin".

I will give style points to anybody who knows who said that...

hedge wrote:"You was on a ship, pardner. Pretty hard to make contact with the people when yer out floatin' in the fuckin' Gulf of Ton-Kin".

I will give style points to anybody who knows who said that...

Bobby in "Wild At Heart"

Very good. Somehow I didn't think that movie would be your cup of tea, JD. I am pleasantly surprised...

hedge wrote:Very good. Somehow I didn't think that movie would be your cup of tea, JD. I am pleasantly surprised...

Google knows all.

So cynical...

hedge wrote:Very good. Somehow I didn't think that movie would be your cup of tea, JD. I am pleasantly surprised...

Friday night was video night in the early 90s and the Mrs. loved weird movies.

This happened last year but someone linked me to it today. Cops ordered a guy with Downs Syndrome to leave a movie theater when he said he wanted to watch Zero Dark Thirty a second time. When he refused to leave, they got physical with him, handcuffed him, and it's unclear what exactly happened after that. Somehow he suffocated to death. Grand jury declined to indict any of the cops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/no- ... story.html

Do you think cops regard themselves as heros when they successfully punish major offenders such as these?

Was he black?

"Do you think cops regard themselves as heros when they successfully punish major offenders such as these?"

You're painting with a pretty broad brush on that one. I could ask, do you think they regard themselves as authorized to murder people for minor transgressions, at whim and with impunity, and likewise regard that as something they secretly enjoy doing? I think both of those positions are pretty absurd...

Dr. Strangelove wrote:This happened last year but someone linked me to it today. Cops ordered a guy with Downs Syndrome to leave a movie theater when he said he wanted to watch Zero Dark Thirty a second time. When he refused to leave, they got physical with him, handcuffed him, and it's unclear what exactly happened after that. Somehow he suffocated to death. Grand jury declined to indict any of the cops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/no- ... story.html

Do you think cops regard themselves as heros when they successfully punish major offenders such as these?

I remember this story. To me it points to a lack of training and a lack of leadership. I can think of several police shootings where the victim was mentally impaired and the cops never attempted non-lethal measures like a taser or mace - they just shot.

This one took place around the corner from my daughter's middle school: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/28/news/mn-27252

The Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a mentally ill homeless woman apparently had an opportunity to disarm her when she placed the screwdriver she allegedly was brandishing in a shopping cart and then pushed it toward the officer, according to sources familiar with the LAPD's investigation.

In his report to the Police Commission, Chief Bernard C. Parks said Officer Edward Larrigan used poor tactics when he pushed the shopping cart back at Margaret Mitchell, an apparent gesture of defense that allowed her to rearm herself, sources said.

Larrigan shot Mitchell, 55, shortly thereafter when she allegedly lunged at him with the foot-long screwdriver.

Parks also criticized Larrigan for positioning himself too closely to Mitchell, increasing his risk of injury, sources said. Larrigan's actions resulted in the chief's ruling of "administrative disapproval" on tactics, sources said. If upheld by the Police Commission, such a finding opens Larrigan to discipline.

Nonetheless, Parks found the overall shooting incident "in policy," sources said.

Mitchell was shot May 21, as she pushed her shopping cart on a sidewalk at the intersection of 4th Street and La Brea Avenue near Hancock Park. Patrolling the area on their bikes, Larrigan and his partner, Kathy Clark, stopped Mitchell to determine whether the shopping cart was stolen.

Her crime? Theft of a shopping cart. She weighed less than 105 lbs. And yes, she was black.

Amazingly, a black cop who I know testified against the cops in the civil trial http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/21/news/mn-56723:

Breaking ranks with other police accounts of last year's controversial police shooting of homeless woman Margaret Mitchell, a veteran LAPD motorcycle officer who watched from across the street as the incident unfolded says he believes the shooting was unwarranted.

Officer John Goines testified during a deposition in a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by Mitchell's family that he was disturbed by the May 21, 1999, slaying of the 102-pound woman, who had been waving a screwdriver at police. Goines acknowledged, as he has before, that his view of the fatal shot was blocked by a passing car, but said he did witness the events leading up to it and immediately following it.

"I didn't understand how this whole thing went down the way it did," Goines said under questioning by attorney Leo Terrell. "I didn't see how--how come the lady ended up getting shot, and it was disturbing to me."

Terrell asked the officer whether he considered the shooting "excessive."

"Yes," he said, adding later: "I would say that [she] was not an immediate threat."

In an interview, Goines added that he could not say whether the officer who fired the shot genuinely felt threatened by Mitchell. "My perception of fear is going to be different than that of another officer," he said.

Bad-cops-being-badasses transcends race; it's power trippers abusing people of all walks of life. Homeless, college students, soccor moms, good 'ol boys kicking back after work...just whoever crosses Billy Badass on his bad day.

If the issue is what happens AFTER Officer Badass is up on charges - if charges against authority figures are disproportionally dropped when the victims are minorities...well, that's institutional racism and that's seriously fucked up.

We have more than our share of cops behaving badly around here, and here's another recent example. The victim was white, and the deputy got shitcanned immediately.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morn ... f-student/

the one common thread about all these cases is the victim not doing what the police asked

please leave the movie theatre
please put that screwdriver down
please put your hands behind your back
please dont try to unholster my weapon
please dont pull out that pellet gun out of your waistband

we hire cops for a very specific reason to serve and protect.
if we neuter their authority by allowing the public not to obey simple requests we have chaos in society

for every story illuminated by the press and expounded on the net there are 10,000 stories of cops doing the right thing

I cant breath dude is one example of excessive but he'd be alive today if he would have cooperated afterbeing given mutiple requests to obey the officers

Stfu with the common sense already, I'll not tolerate it, sir!!11

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." - Thucydides