09-26-2016, 11:36 AM
(09-26-2016, 11:31 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Far be it for me to interrupt our resident law enforcement expert, but rfaulk's point is a valid one. Pointing out that the vast majority of the time LEO's do their job correctly does not excuse the statistically minuscule number of times they do not. If a hurricane kills one person the fact that the death toll was so low is of no consolation to the deceased or their family. That being said, is such a low failure rate worthy of the amount of attention this issue has been getting or the amount of vitriol it has stirred up? I think any reasonable person would say absolutely not. The Guardian has an inane project called "The Counted" in which they use media reports to track all police "killings". I call it inane because they include traffic accidents involving an LEO that caused a fatality or people who died in police custody due to medical issues. They also include killings done by LEO's when they are not on duty. Much like the thoroughly discredited "every 28 hours" claim the sole purpose of this project is not to actually track bad shootings by the police, it's meant to stir up anger which promotes more page views.
When that sovereign citizen idiot in Baltimore was shot and killed the left leaning news sites made a point to state that she was, "the third black woman killed by police this year". What is the point of that statement? Why does that matter? If the point was that she was the third black woman killed who should not have been killed then I can see the point. Since this was clearly not the case with her why does that number have any meaning? The answer is it doesn't, anymore than being the 156th white male killed by police does. It's stated to inflame. It's stated to arouse anger and indignation and one need look no further than this board to find perfect examples of the target audience for this tactic.
The bottom line is that this issue has been blown out of any sense of proportion. Even when a criminal pulls a gun, points it directly at an officer and gets shot for their poor choice you have myriad defenders of said criminal. The whole thing is a joke and any chance this movement had to make meaningful changes ended the minute they conflated the legitimate use of lethal force on criminals with the wrongful shooting of a law abiding citizen.
I agree, the bad use of force should be reviewed. I simply want it to be peer review of policy rather than any Joe on the street. The same reason we peer review medical journals and don't use comment sections of articles for doing so haha.
