Joe speaks out

[Whatever]

(05-31-2020, 12:04 PM)jfkbengals Wrote: I didn't say Floyd should not have been under arrest, nor am I saying that all African American arrests are unjustified.  I said all witnesses and evidence shows he was not resisting arrest.  Resisting arrest is what the arresting officers claimed was the reason for the unjustified force, as is often the case.  It is also the reason for a ton of trumped up charges.  I have two family members who were cops, and have been friends with several over the years.  Listening to them tell stories of being on the force reveals some of the systemic problem of police discrimination.  It is the very reason one friend left the force and became a teacher.  I have also had a number of close friends over the years who are African American and have witnessed the double standard first hand myself on many occasions.  Ever driven someone home from work, and on the way been stopped and interrogated for your reason to be in a suburban neighborhood?  No speeding, no swerving, only stopped because the guy in the passenger seat is black.  Therefore we must be running drugs, we can't be telling the truth, so we have to be frisked and submit to a search of the car.  Otherwise, we face charges of interfering in police business and resisting arrest.  That's just one example.  White people don't spend much time teaching their kids what to do and how to act if they are stopped by the police.  The reason is because they generally don't have to.  Unless they are in the company of minorities, they are generally treated with respect and their rights are observed.  Minorities, on the other hand, have to teach their kids to remain calm and subdued, because their reactions could easily lead to their incarceration, injury, or death. 

Is every charge of resisting arrest justified?  No.  Does the fact that every charge of resisting arrest isn't warranted mean that no charge of resisting arrest is warranted?  No.  Let's look at the statistics from SF that I posted earlier.  African Americans accounted for 6% of the population, but 45% of resisting arrest charges in misdemeanor cases.  In order for the resisting arrest rate for African Americans to be in line with their population, only 13% of those cases could be legitimate.  The other 87% were just made up.  Does anybody really believe that only one in ten cases of resisting arrest involving African American suspects is legitimate?  I hope not.  Even if half of those cases are made up BS, their rate of resisting arrest is still almost four times their population percentage.

Dude, people of all races get stopped for stuff they consider to be BS.  When I was living in a primarily black neighborhood, I got stopped and my truck searched because I was doing 38 in a 35.  I've seen firsthand a cop pull his weapon on a 40 something white woman who had his back turned to him in a Chipotle in the Ohio State campus area.  I used to have a one bedroom apartment that was technically in Upper Arlington(wealthy section of Columbus) and I would get stopped in my old Crown Vic with the caved in door and peeling paint all the time.  I got pulled over for doing 50 in a 45 one night a few months back.  Cops are going to stop you if you look out of place or if you or your vehicle matches the description of a suspect.  When I got pulled over in the black neighborhood, I had started renting space in a house with a coworker and he had told me there were drug houses in the area.  The cops see a white male they don't know rolling through and they're going to stop me and check it out.  That lady the cop pulled the gun on matched the description of a woman who was just involved in a bank robbery nearby.  When I would get stopped in my old beater car I looked massively out of place driving by a bunch of houses with Mercedes and BMW's in the garage.  When I got stopped a few months back, the cop went to my passenger side window and I could tell he had his hand on his holster.  He asked for my license, which I already had out and asked if I knew why he stopped me.  I told him because I was doing 50 in a 45.  He handed back my license, never asked for my registration and let me off with a warning.  It was pretty obvious he pulled me over because my car matched the description of a suspect vehicle and something was up because of just how hurried he acted through the whole thing.  

Both of my parents and my Grandfather had talks with me about dealing with police when I got my learners permit.  Whether you're black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever, if you get loud with a cop, you're headed for trouble.  Many African Americans have a tendency to get loud and defiant in an attempt to assert dominance in confrontations.  White people are generally more willing to show deference to authority figures, hence parents not being as worried about what happens when they get stopped.