Police Reform in America

[Little Raven]

I assume that's not what they're talking about. Presumably, this is more what they have in mind.

I’ve been advocating the abolition of the police for years. Regardless of your view on police power — whether you want to get rid of the police or simply to make them less violent — here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. The idea is gaining traction in Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles and other cities.

...

Why on earth would we think the same reforms would work now? We need to change our demands. The surest way of reducing police violence is to reduce the power of the police, by cutting budgets and the number of officers.

But don’t get me wrong. We are not abandoning our communities to violence. We don’t want to just close police departments. We want to make them obsolete.

We should redirect the billions that now go to police departments toward providing health care, housing, education and good jobs. If we did this, there would be less need for the police in the first place.

We can build other ways of responding to harms in our society. Trained “community care workers” could do mental-health checks if someone needs help. Towns could use restorative-justice models instead of throwing people in prison.

...

When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.

People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation. What would the country look like if it had billions of extra dollars to spend on housing, food and education for all? This change in society wouldn’t happen immediately, but the protests show that many people are ready to embrace a different vision of safety and justice.

But I'm still not sure what that looks like in practice.

[Kurth]

#MAGA is having a massive freakout that the officer in the Wright shooting was named and "forced out" of her job. Why? They seems to be indicating this is a massive overreaction because Daunte Wright was black. In contrast, they are upset that we still don't know who "murdered" Ashli Babbitt. Seriously.

Edit: A taste of the American white supremecist flavor.

This may be one of the stupidest "hot takes" I've ever seen. How could anyone possibly think this is true? Wright was a single, unarmed guy surrounded by three armed police officers. Ashli Babbitt was the tip of the spear of a massive, armed mob that was screaming for blood and trying to breakdown the door behind which a few ridiculously outnumbered police officers were the only line of defense between that mob and Congress.

Did he not watch the videos? How could he possibly see things this way?

[malchior]

Matt Walsh is pretty much an American nazi. He is known for rabble rousing and has about a half million followers (almost all MAGA). I just picked it out of the pile but 'Ashli Babbitt' was trending when I saw this. And it was a bunch of MAGATs just freaking out that she was being 'forgotten'. I agree but I suspect I'm pissed off for completely different reasons.

[Kurth]

I assume that's not what they're talking about. Presumably, this is more what they have in mind.

I’ve been advocating the abolition of the police for years. Regardless of your view on police power — whether you want to get rid of the police or simply to make them less violent — here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. The idea is gaining traction in Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles and other cities.

...

Why on earth would we think the same reforms would work now? We need to change our demands. The surest way of reducing police violence is to reduce the power of the police, by cutting budgets and the number of officers.

But don’t get me wrong. We are not abandoning our communities to violence. We don’t want to just close police departments. We want to make them obsolete.

We should redirect the billions that now go to police departments toward providing health care, housing, education and good jobs. If we did this, there would be less need for the police in the first place.

We can build other ways of responding to harms in our society. Trained “community care workers” could do mental-health checks if someone needs help. Towns could use restorative-justice models instead of throwing people in prison.

...

When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.

People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation. What would the country look like if it had billions of extra dollars to spend on housing, food and education for all? This change in society wouldn’t happen immediately, but the protests show that many people are ready to embrace a different vision of safety and justice.

But I'm still not sure what that looks like in practice.

I'm sorry, but as I read that and I can't help but think it's a poorly done caricature of the liberal position on police reform. What some MAGA, Tucker Carlson-worshipping idiot thinks the libs will do to the police if they get their way.

Except it's not. It's a serious piece from the left regarding their answer to police reform. As printed in the New York Times, the title of the piece says it all: "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police."

[Kurth]

Matt Walsh is pretty much an American nazi. He is known for rabble rousing and has about a half million followers (almost all MAGA). I just picked it out of the pile but 'Ashli Babbitt' was trending when I saw this. And it was a bunch of MAGATs just freaking out that she was being 'forgotten'. I agree but I suspect I'm pissed off for completely different reasons.

But . . . but . . . but, it just doesn't make any sense!

I'm done. Going to go play some games and pretend the real world doesn't exist for a couple of hours.

[malchior]

Except it's not. It's a serious piece from the left regarding their answer to police reform. As printed in the New York Times, the title of the piece says it all: "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police."

I'm almost there. In the sense that in a perfect world the present system needs a massive overhaul. Unfortunately fixing this problem even around the edges is well beyond our political system at this point. I fear we're just going to keep bouncing in and out of pockets of civil unrest for some indefinite period of time.

Edit: To be fair, now that I refreshed my memory I think their point is the police are beyond reform so what do we do. I agree. The police are beyond reform in this nation without something drastic happening. So taking up an extreme position like this is meant IMO to be a bit of a foil for that sort of discussion. I don't think anyone outside a small cadre thinks it is a 'serious policy piece'.

[malchior]

Matt Walsh is pretty much an American nazi. He is known for rabble rousing and has about a half million followers (almost all MAGA). I just picked it out of the pile but 'Ashli Babbitt' was trending when I saw this. And it was a bunch of MAGATs just freaking out that she was being 'forgotten'. I agree but I suspect I'm pissed off for completely different reasons.

But . . . but . . . but, it just doesn't make any sense!

Yup. They live in a completely different alternate reality where they are the put upon people. It's madness.

[hepcat]

#MAGA is having a massive freakout that the officer in the Wright shooting was named and "forced out" of her job. Why? They seems to be indicating this is a massive overreaction because Daunte Wright was black. In contrast, they are upset that we still don't know who "murdered" Ashli Babbitt. Seriously.

Edit: A taste of the American white supremecist flavor.

This may be one of the stupidest "hot takes" I've ever seen. How could anyone possibly think this is true? Wright was a single, unarmed guy surrounded by three armed police officers. Ashli Babbitt was the tip of the spear of a massive, armed mob that was screaming for blood and trying to breakdown the door behind which a few ridiculously outnumbered police officers were the only line of defense between that mob and Congress.

Did he not watch the videos? How could he possibly see things this way?

Most people didn't applaud the death of Ashli Babbit. They decried the lying that got her killed.

[Kurth]

Minnesota officer who killed Daunte Wright will be charged with manslaughter.

609.205 MANSLAUGHTER IN THE SECOND DEGREE

(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;

Don't necessarily disagree with the decision to charge, but I think a conviction here is pretty unlikely. This is a tough one. Very interested to see what comes out about Kim Potter's background and any prior complaints.

[stimpy]

Well this should help ease tensions.....

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 212525002/

[LawBeefaroni]

A buddy of mine retires from CPD this week. He picked the date back in January knowing that the Chauvin trial would be wrapping up and he didn't want to go through riots again.

Looking like he chose wisely.

[Grifman]

i am going to say this, and if I take heat for it. so be it. I don't condone any of the shootings that I have seen. That said, in most cases (I can think of a couple of exceptions, such as the Philando Castile shooting), none of this would have happened if the person had done what the police had said. A traffic stop is not the place to litigate your case, to try to explain to the police why you are innocent and why they are wrong, or tell them that they have to explain themselves. Even if you feel like they are acting illegally, the place to deal with that is in court, not by the side of the road. It seems to me that drivers education and driving tests ought to include sections on how to respond when police pull you over. You can call it victim blaming, but fewer people at traffic stops would end up being shot if they just do what the police tell them, right or wrong.

If you are in a car and you don't come out when given the order, police are going to go on edge. They don't know if you have a gun in the car, if the windows are tinted they may not be able to see if someone else is in there, and there is concern that they could be dragged off if they reach in and the car is started and put into drive. All of those things are pretty rare, but that is what is in their mind.

None of this excuses the racism, or the bad behavior of many cops. But I do think we need to train drivers how to react when pulled over in a traffic stop similarly as police train to handle a traffic stop. After all, if the goal is to save lives, then we need to do what we need to do, and approach the problem from all angles.

[Grifman]

Minnesota officer who killed Daunte Wright will be charged with manslaughter.

609.205 MANSLAUGHTER IN THE SECOND DEGREE

(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;

Don't necessarily disagree with the decision to charge, but I think a conviction here is pretty unlikely. This is a tough one. Very interested to see what comes out about Kim Potter's background and any prior complaints.

I read today that over the years 15 officers have been tried on shooting someone while claiming that they thought they were pulling out their taser but mistakenly pulled out their gun and fired. Only 3 were convicted.

[malchior]

i am going to say this, and if I take heat for it. so be it. I don't condone any of the shootings that I have seen. That said, in most cases (I can think of a couple of exceptions, such as the Philando Castile shooting), none of this would have happened if the person had done what the police had said. A traffic stop is not the place to litigate your case, to try to explain to the police why you are innocent and why they are wrong, or tell them that they have to explain themselves. Even if you feel like they are acting illegally, the place to deal with that is in court, not by the side of the road. It seems to me that drivers education and driving tests ought to include sections on how to respond when police pull you over. You can call it victim blaming, but fewer people at traffic stops would end up being shot if they just do what the police tell them, right or wrong.

As usual if you have to qualify it then you are absolutely doing the thing. You are victim blaming. And while there is some sliver of truth to it, it is in a very bad way. Very few of us have any idea what these folks have to deal with. We don't get targeted for nuisance violations. We don't get pulled over at disproportionate rates. We don't suffer from a history of police violence against us. It is very easy for us to say, if only they just complied but it isn't that simple.

If you are in a car and you don't come out when given the order, police are going to go on edge. They don't know if you have a gun in the car, if the windows are tinted they may not be able to see if someone else is in there, and there is concern that they could be dragged off if they reach in and the car is started and put into drive. All of those things are pretty rare, but that is what is in their mind.

Sure. But people are terrified of the police. Terrified. The black, Hispanic man who recently was in the news went out of his way to drive to a well lit location. Why? Because he was worried about his safety. Yet that turned a normal encounter into a high adrenaline scream fest where the officers were anything but level headed or professional. They actually complained on camera about how minorities often do that. Expecting the drivers to act rationally when they've seen black faces murdered by police over and over...is sort of putting the blame on the wrong parties.

In any case, let's be clear. Almost none of us live in this kind of daily fear of interactions with the police. You have to figure every time they get in a car they are worried if they'll have an encounter with the police. And the reason he wasn't complying is almost certainly that he didn't want to make any sudden moves with a pair of guns and cops yelling at him. He was saying things like, "I don't want to reach down." "I'm showing you my hands." Etc. He was scared of the move that'll be the excuse for a cop to end his life. I'd hazard a strong guess very few of us have been in that position.

None of this excuses the racism, or the bad behavior of many cops. But I do think we need to train drivers how to react when pulled over in a traffic stop similarly as police train to handle a traffic stop. After all, if the goal is to save lives, then we need to do what we need to do, and approach the problem from all angles.

This is not a solution. Training drivers isn't the problem. It is a Kafkaesque suggestion to be honest. We need to cops to *STOP TERRIFYING* the black population. They pull them over when they aren't where "they belong". Or drive too nice a car. They profile them. They commit random acts of violence on them. And they get away with it. The problem isn't the people's reaction. The problem is the police. The problem is the system. And the problem is the many people who shrug and accept these type of justifications for the continuing oppressive police interactions that black people live with every day.

[dbt1949]

I stopped watching Copsa long time ago as it was apparent that 90%+ of the time the people were being pulled over because the cops were profiling them. Just like today. It won't ever stop until we can change the cop's mindset. And I don't see that happening any time soon.

[Grifman]

It is very easy for us to say, if only they just complied but it isn't that simple.

And yet, it is. There are between 20 and 30 million traffic stops each year. Unfortunately, I can't find the percentage that for African Americans, but let's assume 25% (we know it is higher than their percentage of population). Per the Washington Post police shooting database about 100 to 120 people of all races per year are shot by police at traffic stops. Of this number, about 1/3 are African American or about 30 to 40 per year. Of that number, some will be justified due to an officer defending himself. But for the sake of argument, let's assume they are all unjustified (in the sense that the driver was ultimately no threat to the police officer though the officer may have perceived a threat).

Every death is a tragedy and police need to do all they can to reduce all shootings - no argument there. But the numbers don't lie. One, if you are pulled over, it is highly unlikely that you are going to be killed - even if you are African American. Two, if people comply with police orders they generally don't get killed. The statistics above show that. The vast vast majority of traffic stops end totally peacefully. Yes, racism causes African Americans to get pulled over disproportionally more than white drivers (we know that from statistics also and we know that from the stories of African American experiences), but even so, almost every one of those interactions take place without someone being killed.

Yes, blacks are pulled over far more than whites based upon their percentage of population due racism/inherent bias. Yes, there are racist cops out there who unnecessarily escalate situations like the one you mentioned in the recent video with the army officer (which I also saw and was appalled at). But a lot of the shootings we see aare started when people do not obey police orders, which results in a deadly escalation. Can you seriously deny that if people complied with police orders that there would be less killings at traffic stops, racism not withstanding?

The real question is do we really want to reduce deaths? If that is our goal, then we need to tackle the problem from both ends. When looking at solving a problem in a system, you need to look at the points of failure. Once the traffic stop has been made, we have two points, the driver's actions and the officer's actions. (Note, there may have been a point of failure which actually led to the stop but that is beyond our scope here). From one end, drivers need to obey police orders. The moment they do not obey orders, that automatically puts the officer on alert, and dramatically raises the threat level in the mind of the officer. On the other end, police need to do everything they can to remain calm, make the driver feel at ease, and deescalate any rising tensions if possible. There definitely needs to be more training there. But we need to approach the problem from both sides if we really want to save lives.

The problem is the system. And the problem is the many people who shrug and accept these type of justifications for the continuing oppressive police interactions that black people live with every day.

The problem here is your mischaracterization of my position. Nowhere did I justify any oppressive police actions. Calling for people to obey police orders to reduce shootings in no way justifies any unnecessary use of force even if they don't comply. The former does not logically entail the latter. I simply believe that if we want to reduce shootings we need to approach the problem from both ends.

[Grifman]

Another possible solution would be to reduce traffic stops:

https://jalopnik.com/the-case-for-endin ... 1843925565

[Unagi]

Another possible solution would be to reduce traffic stops:

https://jalopnik.com/the-case-for-endin ... 1843925565

I could totally get behind this idea.
(with some obvious exceptions)

[Grifman]

Another possible solution would be to reduce traffic stops:

https://jalopnik.com/the-case-for-endin ... 1843925565

I could totally get behind this idea.
(with some obvious exceptions)

Yeah, I think actions that endanger the public should be policed (speeding, driving dangerously, drunk driving) but but busted tail lights, rolling through stop signs, not so much, IMO.

[malchior]

The problem is the system. And the problem is the many people who shrug and accept these type of justifications for the continuing oppressive police interactions that black people live with every day.

The problem here is your mischaracterization of my position. Nowhere did I justify any oppressive police actions. Calling for people to obey police orders to reduce shootings in no way justifies any unnecessary use of force even if they don't comply. The former does not logically entail the latter. I simply believe that if we want to reduce shootings we need to approach the problem from both ends.

I'm not mischaracterizing it. I am simply challenging your world view on this. What I said that it is the justification that is rolled out (mostly by conservatives) almost every time this happens. Sure it is theoretically possible that it could reduce killings if we somehow convinced the terrified population to comply. But again this terrified populace is stuck in a negative feedback loop where they see black people killed by cops, the cops gets away with it, and drives negative behaviors that get black people killed. Asking people who are afraid for their lives to act *perfectly* when any perceived imperfection could get them killed is asking too much of them. It is even worse when we often don't hold police accountable even when they are clearly wrong. In many of these situations people are being shouted at, told conflicting orders, and sometimes they do comply and get killed anyway. That isn't a 'driver training' problem.

In that spirit, it'd be far more helpful to stop the police from racially profiling them by collecting stats like we do in NJ now - this started when our state police had a massive profiling problem. It be far more helpful to actually formally count how many people are killed by police. We still don't do that in this country. We don't track police activity including lawful use of force in any sort of standardized way. So one thing I'd really recommend is not turning to stats because they don't exist in aggregate. That's why this isn't a simple problem. It isn't simple as 'Just comply' and killings go down. We don't know that. We can't know that. And our nation can't fix complex problems so this will continue on.

[LawBeefaroni]

Policing by stats is a perilous path though, too. It can result in police simply ignoring black/minority neighborhoods in order to play the numbers, often the same neighborhoods in desperate need of a police presence.

I'm all for taking traffic enforcement out of the hands of police hands but then who does it? Does this also include state police, who patrol the highways?

[noxiousdog]

The killings are an outlier, but let's understand that's not the real issue. It's the consistent harassments, threats, and punishments that sometimes when things don't go right result in a killing.

I'm not sure the traffic stop thing is practical. Perhaps on equipment, but not on traffic violations unless we go to more automated systems. People are bad enough drivers and too many around here don't have insurance.

[malchior]

The killings are an outlier, but let's understand that's not the real issue. It's the consistent harassments, threats, and punishments that sometimes when things don't go right result in a killing.

The killings might be outliers but they are regular enough to drive behaviors. And they drive narrative as well. But the volume drives the outliers so reducing volume does makes sense. The problem is we don't have control over the police.

Policing by stats is a perilous path though, too. It can result in police simply ignoring black/minority neighborhoods in order to play the numbers, often the same neighborhoods in desperate need of a police presence.

As I stated above we have little to no control. We hope that a system that clearly doesn't work will fix itself through rhetoric. Unfortunately it is often driven by personal viewpoints. I'd take the trade off of cops gaming the system to build visibility and control so we can talk about this as a fact based exercise.

[Isgrimnur]

People are bad enough drivers and too many around here don't have insurance.

To say nothing of the accessories.

[noxiousdog]

The killings might be outliers but they are regular enough to drive behaviors. And they drive narrative as well. But the volume drives the outliers so reducing volume does makes sense. The problem is we don't have control over the police.

I agree with your conclusion. The statement was more for grifman. You can't expect people to comply and not freak out when they've had so many bad experiences.

[LawBeefaroni]

People are bad enough drivers and too many around here don't have insurance.

To say nothing of the accessories.

Not a great way to avoid the hated traffic stop.

He said anything that makes a passenger car wider than eight feet is illegal. Oborski also said the tire rims, or pokes, were also in the other lane and that the car was violating more than one state law.

"Failing to drive in a single marked lane, and probably not letting others get past safely, and also violating the width of the vehicle law," said Detective Oborski.

[malchior]

Meanwhile in Chicago the city released the video of a 13-year old being killed by the police. The police narrative appear to be disproven by the video.

This is a still frame from the moment before the boy was shot in the chest and killed. You don't see anything but the idea is he may have had a gun in his hand before turning. That is very hard from the full motion video I saw since the officer was running. I am spoilering because it is upsetting even though it doesn't show the violence.

Spoiler:

On another front, the prosecutor misspoke in court.

[stimpy]

looks like a gun to me.....



he chucked it behind the fence just as the cop was telling him to raise his hands and turn around.
Split second as the kid whips around and faces the cop.
He didnt have it in his hand when shot, but sure did a second before.

Kid took a gamble by running and unfortunately lost.

[LawBeefaroni]

Meanwhile in Chicago the city released the video of a 13-year old being killed by the police. The police narrative appear to be disproven by the video.

This is a still frame from the moment before the boy was shot in the chest and killed. You don't see anything but the idea is he may have had a gun in his hand before turning. That is very hard from the full motion video I saw since the officer was running. I am spoilering because it is upsetting even though it doesn't show the violence.

Spoiler:

On another front, the prosecutor misspoke in court.

From what I have heard and seen, he was tasked with running from the police to get rid of the gun by a 21-year-old he was with who had previous felony UUW convictions and charges. Police show up, kid runs, 21-year-old tries to get in the way.

The kid had a gun but threw it behind the fence as he turned around. Cop shot him as he turned. Cop had his strobe on (stupid tacticool menace, strobes). There's a still of him right before he turns, you can see the gun behind his back/at his side.



The prosecutor was at the bond hearing of the 21-year-old. Whether the kid had the gun in his hand or not wasn't really relevant, not sure why he said that, except maybe to advance the police narrative at the time. He was probably told that by police and took it as fact.




This will be a justified/not justified and police murder/not murder fight in the media and at the watercooler. But it is really a proxy war. The kid and cop are just casualties in a battle in the bigger class and racial inequality war. Cannon fodder and a pawn.

[malchior]

This is one of those split second decisions that is hard to argue about. Though the still shows a boy with both hands up. But that is a still. It is a fraction of a second.

The bigger concern IMO is the police lied about this, the prosecutors made misstatements in court, and Lightfoot herself made statements that look skewed now that the video is released. They claimed at some point that he shot at them. They said his hands had gun powder residue (to back up the armed confrontation angle). They lied and lied and resisted releasing the video until they were forced to and their narratives are all exposed as untrue. If they went with the truth, it wouldn't have been much less inflammatory to some but at least they'd have the truth on their side.

[stimpy]

I saw the video and was wondering who that was that was running right in front of the cop before the cop pushed him out of the way.
Makes sense.

[stimpy]

This is one of those split second decisions that is hard to argue about. Though the still shows a boy with both hands up. But that is a still. It is a fraction of a second.

The bigger concern IMO is the police lied about this, the prosecutors made misstatements in court, and Lightfoot herself made statements that look skewed now that the video is released. They claimed at some point that he shot at them. They said his hands had gun powder residue (to back up the armed confrontation angle). They lied and lied and resisted releasing the video until they were forced to and their narratives are all exposed as untrue. If they went with the truth, it wouldn't have been much less inflammatory to some but at least they'd have the truth on their side.

The cops were called there because of 8 shots being fired.
I would'nt doubt the kid had gunpowder on his hands.

[LawBeefaroni]

I saw the video and was wondering who that was that was running right in front of the cop before the cop pushed him out of the way.
Makes sense.

On the COPA site they have the partner's bodycam. He goes down and she cuffs him without resistance. He knew the kid had the gun and was just trying to slow their pursuit.

[stimpy]

I saw the video and was wondering who that was that was running right in front of the cop before the cop pushed him out of the way.
Makes sense.

On the COPA site they have the partner's bodycam. He goes down and she cuffs him without resistance. He knew the kid had the gun and was just trying to slow their pursuit.

Actually a smart move. Too bad it didnt end well for his homie. I hope he feels remorse.

[LawBeefaroni]

This is one of those split second decisions that is hard to argue about. Though the still shows a boy with both hands up. But that is a still. It is a fraction of a second.

The bigger concern IMO is the police lied about this, the prosecutors made misstatements in court, and Lightfoot herself made statements that look skewed now that the video is released. They claimed at some point that he shot at them. They said his hands had gun powder residue (to back up the armed confrontation angle). They lied and lied and resisted releasing the video until they were forced to and their narratives are all exposed as untrue. If they went with the truth, it wouldn't have been much less inflammatory to some but at least they'd have the truth on their side.

Yeah, this is bad. I can understand some of it chalked up foggy information in a crisis but insisting on things that were never ever borne out by evidence even at the time, well that's a pre-requisite of a Chicago Mayor I guess.

And to give you an idea of how relations are, at a Little Village press conference yesterday, some community leader said he head that the video was choppy and possibly edited. He said if it showed a justified shooting, it was doctored. Everyone poisoning the well.

[malchior]

This is one of those split second decisions that is hard to argue about. Though the still shows a boy with both hands up. But that is a still. It is a fraction of a second.

The bigger concern IMO is the police lied about this, the prosecutors made misstatements in court, and Lightfoot herself made statements that look skewed now that the video is released. They claimed at some point that he shot at them. They said his hands had gun powder residue (to back up the armed confrontation angle). They lied and lied and resisted releasing the video until they were forced to and their narratives are all exposed as untrue. If they went with the truth, it wouldn't have been much less inflammatory to some but at least they'd have the truth on their side.

The cops were called there because of 8 shots being fired.
I would'nt doubt the kid had gunpowder on his hands.

Apparently that is now possibly in dispute. The older person may have actually fired the shots and handed the weapon to the boy. Perhaps the handling transferred residue. Still they only released information that bolstered their now proven false narrative. Many police officers and organizations lie. They lie a lot and even lie when the evidence to disprove it exists. They do it because they rarely suffer any consequences for it. Our pervasive lack of control is rooted in absent accountability. It isn't crazy for me to predict nothing will happen out of this. Well the judge will probably chastise the prosecutor but that's about it.

[LawBeefaroni]

This is one of those split second decisions that is hard to argue about. Though the still shows a boy with both hands up. But that is a still. It is a fraction of a second.

The bigger concern IMO is the police lied about this, the prosecutors made misstatements in court, and Lightfoot herself made statements that look skewed now that the video is released. They claimed at some point that he shot at them. They said his hands had gun powder residue (to back up the armed confrontation angle). They lied and lied and resisted releasing the video until they were forced to and their narratives are all exposed as untrue. If they went with the truth, it wouldn't have been much less inflammatory to some but at least they'd have the truth on their side.

The cops were called there because of 8 shots being fired.
I would'nt doubt the kid had gunpowder on his hands.

The red gloves dropped by the older guy (as seen in the partner video) were loaded with powder residue. One assumes he/they were wearing them when shooting. Doesn't mean the kid didn't also have some on his hands since he handled the gun bare-handed while running.

[stimpy]

Many police officers, and organizations lie. They lie a lot and even lie when the evidence to disprove it exists.

You forgot to add criminals to your list.

[Alefroth]

Many police officers, and organizations lie. They lie a lot and even lie when the evidence to disprove it exists.

You forgot to add criminals to your list.

No, it's in there.

[Jaymann]

Strange bedfellows...